Editing Toras HaChassidus (section)

=== The Mussar Approach ===
The Mussar approach, in contrast, deals with refining character traits.

The Frierdiker Rebbe (Previous Rebbe) explains the matter of the Mussar approach in a talk that was printed in "Kuntres Toras HaChassidus":

"When a person behaves like an animal, he is worse than an animal. For an animal has no intelligence to desire and choose something more elevated than bodily desires and lusts. But a person who has the intelligence to desire and choose something more elevated than bodily desires, such as good character traits and intellectual pursuits, yet chooses physical desires, is more degraded and contaminated than, lehavdil (to distinguish), an animal.

The wisdom of nullifying physicality through teaching the repulsiveness and abhorrence of physical pleasures and desires, and the greatness of punishment in Gehinom and the like that a person will be punished for being drawn after bodily desires - this is the wisdom of Mussar."

Mussar therefore deals with "bandaging external wounds" - fixing traits like pride, laziness, anger and so forth. An excellent example of this approach can be found in the Ramchal's "Mesillas Yesharim."