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Exclusive "Duties of the Heart" Cheshbon Hanefesh Workbook on Sale for Elul

9/8/2018

5 Comments

 
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Last year saw the first appearance of the following workbook:

30 Ways to Make Your Soul Shine:
​A Guide to Making a Self-Accounting Based on Rabbeinu Bachya's Classic "Duties of the Heart."


Thank you very much to everyone who purchased it!

To learn more about how it evolved and what it's can do for you, please keep scrolling down.

To open in another tab or download PDF sample chapters, please press the blue button:

Soul Shine Sample Chapters

To order, please click any of the following:
Amazon
Book Depository
Barnes & Noble
I'm indebted to both Feldheim's excellent English translation & Rabbi Yosef Sebag's excellent English translation of Chovot Halevavot, (Duties of the Heart) along with his English translations of its commentaries. Extremely useful in understanding this all-important mussar classic!

Please click the following to check it out:
Excellent English translation of Chovot Halevavot plus commentaries

(The following post is an updated version of the post that appeared a year ago.)

How This Workbook was Born

Throughout the years, I’ve read Rabbeinu Bachya’s Cheshbon Hanefesh ("Self-Accounting" or "Soul Accounting") within Chovot Halevavot (Duties of the Heart) several times, but always got stuck as if it couldn’t penetrate my brain.

Every few years, I looked at it anew hoping that wherever I was holding anew in my frumkeit and advancing knowledge would finally reveal to me what I didn’t perceive before.

But to my puzzlement, it remained the same impenetrable chapter.

My problem was that instead of it reading as I thought a self-accounting should read, it contained urging after urging to “contemplate this” and “contemplate that,” or “imagine that you didn’t have this” and “imagine that you had something else instead.”

It seemed to be a convoluted way of merely counting your blessings.

Where were the middot I needed to scrutinize, the transgressions I needed to root out?

What I only realized much later was that my own mind was too narrow.

I got stuck on what I thought a cheshbon hanefesh was supposed to be and couldn’t see Rabbeinu Bachya’s view of what a chesbon hanefesh really is.

It was only after I read Rav Shalom Arush’s book on saying thank you (Garden of Gratitude) that the light bulb went on.

Contemplating Hashem’s Goodness along with the Unfathomable Wisdom with which He created the human soul, human mind, and human body leads to teshuvah and avodat hamiddot.

In other words, gratitude on its own is transformational.

Sure, there are a few cheshbonot in which Rabbeinu Bachya describes what you’d conventionally consider a “cheshbon.” But mostly, it’s “contemplate the different parts and organs of your body, how smoothly they all function, and how your bones and sockets fit so perfectly together.”

Rabbeinu Bachya guides you to start at the root: become a good person...NOW.

Had I just sat down and started doing any of the 30 techniques he details within, I would’ve automatically become less bitter, more expanded, more attuned to what I was doing wrong, and increased my overall emuna.

But I’m the type of person who likes to understand how and why something works before I start. This is usually a good tendency. Yet sometimes, the best way to understand something is to just do it. And with a tzaddik on the level of Rabbeinu Bachya, I have nothing to fear. It’s okay to just trust his guidance and take the leap.

So I finally took the leap, but felt I would manage better if I could break each technique down to the steps detailed within. Then I wished I could organize it into a workbook form because I needed to make it even more concrete in order to get my head around it.

Then I thought, if I’m going to make a workbook anyway, why not make it available to a wider audience?

And that's how 30 Ways to Make Your Soul Shine: A Workbook Guide to Making a Self-Accounting Based on Rabbeinu Bachya's Classic "Duties of the Heart" was born. (Sample pages available for download both above & below.)

I’m not the only person who has read mussar sefarim and come away feeling perplexed or dissatisfied because I couldn’t figure out how to do what they suggested.

The thing is, you just have to jump in (which is hard if you're like me).

Either with paper & pen or with your mouth, just do what they say. Meaning, if they say “contemplate,” do it verbally or manually (like with a pencil and paper), and not just mentally.
 
My big disclaimer is that the workbook falls very short of what you could do for each technique if you just sat down and did it. Really, you could spend 30-60 minutes on each technique, either talking it through with Hashem or doing a stream-of-consciousness freewrite. So if you don’t need the workbook, then GREAT. That’s ideal; you’ll get more out of it. But if you ran into the same issues I did, then this workbook can help you get more out of it than you would otherwise.

Note: It's fine if you don't fill out every single line of the workbook, if you fill out only one page, or if most of it ends up blank. In the spiritual world, even the tiniest baby step reaps tremendous results, whether you sense them or not. Any good act you perform can never be erased. So if you write down only one thing to be grateful for, only one organ you appreciate in your body, or whatever, that is very powerful and stays with you forever...whether you feel this or not.

Rabbeinu Bachya himself did not state any order and he stressed the need for each person to do it according to one’s individual level and situation.

So there is a lot of room for flexibility and no room for guilt or pressure.

Practical Stuff

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Right now, it’s being offered on Amazon a special low price.

(It is currently available at several of the Amazon sites in that country's currency of pound or euro.)

I'm publishing it under the name "Myrtle Rising."

  • There is a glossary of all non-English terms to make the workbook accessible for everyone.
  • Each cheshbon includes suggestions if you get stuck.

Table of Contents
        Introduction
  1. Gratitude Owed to Hashem as Your Rescuer and Benefactor
  2. Gratitude Owed to Hashem for Your Physical Body
  3. Gratitude Owed to Hashem for Your Intellect
  4. Gratitude Owed to Hashem for the Torah
  5. Your Obligation to Resist being Superficial
  6. Your Obligation to Obey Hashem out of a Sense of Gratitude
  7. Your Obligation to Serve Hashem out of Gratitude
  8. Your Obligation to Serve Hashem with Gratitude and Sincerity
  9. Your Responsibility to Perform Mitzvot with Enthusiasm
  10. Remembering the Attention Hashem Lavishes on You
  11. An Accounting of Your Gifts and How You Use Them
  12. Redirecting Your Pursuit of the Physical World
  13. Your Obligation to Avoid Wasting Time
  14. Using Gratitude to Prevent a Spider Web
  15. How to Prepare for Your Ultimate Journey
  16. Reflections When Remembering Another’s Death
  17. The Benefits of Solitude
  18. Your Very Greatness as a Human Being Obligates You in Humility
  19. Gratitude toward Hashem When Bad Things DON’T Happen
  20. Your Obligation to Cultivate a Healthy Attitude toward Money
  21. Asking for Hashem’s Help
  22. Loving Your Fellow as Yourself
  23. Gratitude to Hashem regarding Natural Occurrences
  24. Looking at the Torah through “New” Eyes
  25. Minimizing the Material while Maximizing the Spiritual
  26. Really Feeling Hashem as King
  27. Thanking Hashem for What Seems Bad
  28. Complete Acceptance of Hashem’s Will
  29. The Greatness of Your Soul Over Your Body and Other Attributes
  30. Recognition of Your True Position in This World
 Glossary


Sample Pages
I've included the Introduction and the first 15 Cheshbonot, and Cheshbon #21 because #21 is the only one I saw fit to get artistic about.
Sample PDF Soul Shine Chapters
Thank you more than I can say.

May we all have a lot of hatzlacha in scrubbing our souls.
5 Comments
yosef link
13/8/2017 23:16:38

do you have a permanent link to this?

Reply
Myrtle Rising
13/8/2017 23:24:04

Yes, on the sidebar toward the top, you can click on the image of the workbook cover and it will take you straight to the Amazon page.

I also added to the number of free sample chapters available. You can download up to 16 chapters for free by clicking on the blue button below the image in the sidebar.

Thank you very much for your interest!

Reply
Myrtle Rising
14/1/2019 16:17:12

Update to the last comment:

In an attempt to de-clutter the sidebar, the bookstore links have been removed from the sidebar, but the permanent links to the workbook will remain on this page, where the customer can choose the blue button-links to Amazon, B&N, or Book Depository.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Cohen link
8/8/2018 19:04:35

Rambam Refutes Reform Judaism:

https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/11/rambam-vs-reform-judaism.html

==============================
Rambam Rejected Childless Messiah:

http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/08/rambam-rejected-childless-messiah-by-mr.html

Reply
Myrtle Rising
8/8/2018 20:07:38

Thank you, Mr. Cohen.

Reply

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    I'm a middle-aged housewife and mother in Eretz Yisrael who likes to read and write a lot.


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