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The sefarim, and how a passage finds its way to you

Eight classical mussar sefarim, the care taken to prepare every passage faithfully, and how your rating helps the right words come back to you.

1. The eight sefarim

SeferAuthor
Mesillat YesharimRamchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto)
Chovot HaLevavotRabbeinu Bachya ibn Pakuda
Midot HaRe'iyahRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook
Orot HaKodeshRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook
Sha'arei TeshuvaRabbeinu Yona of Gerona
Cheshbon HaNefeshRabbi Menachem Mendel of Satanov
Pele YoetzRabbi Eliezer Papo
Orchot TzaddikimAnonymous, ~15th century

Mesillat Yesharim is the foundational map of spiritual ascent — from carefulness to true holiness — following the ladder of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair's beraita. Chovot HaLevavot distinguishes the inner duties of the heart (faith, trust, repentance) from the outer duties of action. Midot HaRe'iyah and Orot HaKodesh, both by Rav Kook, center on "elevating the traits" — bringing the soul's forces into balance through inner reflection, never through suppression. Sha'arei Teshuva is the classical work on teshuva — the kinds of sin, the paths back, and the process of inner purification. Cheshbon HaNefesh is the practical heart of the morning avodah (see the Morning Check-in page). Pele Yoetz is an alphabetical guide to traits and conduct in everyday life, practical and warm in tone. Orchot Tzaddikim organizes itself entirely around 28 named "gates," each one devoted to a single middah, from pride and humility through to the fear of Heaven.

2. How each sefer is prepared with care

Every word the Guide ever sends you is copied faithfully from the sefer itself — never shortened, never paraphrased, never summarized. Before any passage can be shared, a careful preparation is done for each sefer, by hand and with attention, in two stages:

First, finding the chapters

Each sefer's own chapters and sections are clearly marked, exactly as the author divided them, so that every passage can always be placed in its proper context within the sefer.

Then, learning each passage on its own

Every passage in the sefer is then read carefully, one by one, to determine: is this simply a heading, already accounted for? Is it a short line that doesn't teach anything on its own, and so isn't sent as a stand-alone lesson? Does it depend entirely on the words before it to be understood — in which case it stays joined to that earlier passage, so that when the Guide sends you the earlier one, its continuation always comes along with it? Or does it stand fully on its own as a real, complete teaching?

Every passage that stands on its own is then labeled with the middah or theme it actually teaches — ענווה, גאווה, סבלנות, and so on — so that, later, the Guide can recognize which passages speak to which traits, and choose well for whatever you may be working on.

This preparation is checked and re-checked, and a sefer can always be revisited and refined further — nothing is ever considered final once and for all.

3. How your rating helps

Every morning passage you receive is remembered. When you reply with a rating from 0 to 10, that rating is recorded — and from then on, it shapes what comes to you next:

  1. Anything sent to you in the last thirty days is set aside — you will not see the same passage twice in that time.
  2. Every so often — roughly one time in five — a passage you once rated 7 or higher is deliberately brought back to you, weighted toward your preferred sefer if you've chosen one.
  3. Otherwise, a passage is chosen from whatever hasn't been sent recently — and if, somehow, everything has been sent too recently, the Guide simply draws from the whole library again.

Rate honestly — a high rating is the only way the Guide can know which words truly reached you, so it can bring you more like them.