Is Mussar the “New Kabbalah”?

A few weeks ago Jay Michaelson wrote a double book review for Forward on two Mussar related books: Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar by Alan Morinis and A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar by Ira Stone. Michaelson summarizes Mussar as “the moralistic movement within Eastern European Judaism … focuses on rectifying the middot, or character traits, from within. The general contours of Mussar practice are straightforward: introspection and self-accounting.” The reviewer clearly refers Morinis’ more accessible book with its attention to the individual. While holding Stone accountable for not offering enough advice how to find the community that is needed to cultivate the technologies Mussar developed for self-betterment. The answer to the question in the title of the review and this post is no, because “it may be not spiritual enough for spiritual aficionados.”