Ben Franklin and Mussar Program

Character Development Course

at the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island

March–July 2022

Providence’s Congregation Beth Sholom, Core Connects Rhode Island, the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, the Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island, Providence’s Temple Beth-El, and Providence’s Temple Emanu-El have collaborated to offer a 12-week in-person program:

Spiritual Accounting:
Benjamin Franklin and Rabbi Mendel Lefin’s Course of Character Development

In this program — conceived by Shai Afsai and Rivi Feinsilber, funded by a grant from the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, and free for all participants — a group of Jewish adults from across the religious and communal spectra in the Greater Rhode Island area will embark together on the course of reflection and character improvement outlined by Benjamin Franklin in his 18th-century autobiography and later elaborated in a Jewish context by Rabbi Menaḥem Mendel Lefin in his 1808 Hebrew mussar (Jewish moral discipline and ethical refinement) work, Sefer Ḥeshbon Hanefesh (Book of Spiritual Accounting).

With in-depth textual study and close-knit, pluralistic community building, the program involves significant time commitment from participants (12 in-person meetings, as well as reading and charting), who it is hoped will return to their homes, synagogues, and organizations with a new religious, communal, and personal perspective.

The 12 in-person meetings take place on Sunday mornings from 10:15 to 11:45 AM, beginning March 13 and concluding July 3, 2022. (There will be no meetings on April 17, May 22, May 29, June 5, or June 26.) Meetings will normally be held in the board room of the Jewish Alliance, 401 Elmgrove Avenue, Providence, Rhode Island 02906.

For more
information and to apply to this fully funded program, contact Shai Afsai at shai.afsai@ppsd.org