It is a fairly common complaint that Judaism is a religion of rules and regulations that is heavy on structure, but light on facilitating serenity and joy. According to this line of thought, moderns who seek spirituality must look elsewhere. Not coincidentally, many of the leading names in the contemporary mindfulness movement, loosely associated with Buddhism, are Jews: Jack Kornfeld; Sylvia Boorstein; Jon Kabat Zinn; Sharon Salzberg; Joseph Goldstein; and Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert), among them.

I can well understand this perception, as many of the mainstream organs of disseminating Judaism—schools and shuls—while they provide many valuable services, do not invest heavily in teaching or modelling for the faithful how to seek out and practice a Judaism that brings soul elevation and a quiet, fulfilled heart. This is more than a pity, as the tradition does contain wisdom to help each human being fulfil their potential and navigate the manifold challenges and stresses of life today. In that spirit, I offer up here a modest 12 step program towards inner peace, based primarily on Jewish teachings:   

1. Positive thinking creates a positive reality

“If you believe that you can ruin, then believe that you can fix.” Rav Nachman of Breslov.

Rebbe Nachman’s point is acute indeed: You must think yourself pretty powerful if you believe that you are capable of destroying things in this world. If so, then try visualizing that you have the power to make the world a better place. Or as Hamlet reminds us, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

2. Appreciate what we have

Who is the rich person? The one who is satisfied with his/her portion. Pirke Avot 4:1)

Pandemic or not, we are the most affluent generation in the history of humankind, but we find it hard to appreciate our lives. Wealth is a relative term, and best applied to the blessings of waking up each day and recognizing all the various goods we take for granted.

3. Live in the Present, and Do Not Get Stuck in the Past

“One who cried to God over the past offers a prayer in vain.”  Mishnah Brachot  Ch. 9. 

Maimonides wrote a treatise on hygiene in 1198 for the Egyptian sultan Afdal Nur al-Din Ali, who suffered from depression. In it, Maimonides uses language that would land him a scholar in residence gig at a Buddhist retreat in 2020: 

“Whenever a person thinks about something that distresses him, and worry, grief, or sadness crop up in him, it can be due only to one of two things: either (s)he is thinking about a matter that has already taken place…or else (s)he is thinking about matters whose advent (s)he dreads [in the future]…Thinking about what has taken place and has happened is of no benefit at all. Thinking leading to depression about something that is to come to pass in the future ought also to be abandoned.”

In other words, all we have is the present moment. Ruminating about the past or dreading the future may be understandable emotionally, but they are traps that deflect us from living with conscious intentionality, in the here and now.

4. You Cannot Control Other People, only yourself

“Who is the strong person? The one who controls his/her own desires.” Avot 4:1

I have written at length about this previously [see “The Only Person You Can Control is Yourself”, posted May 5, 2020]. We spend a lot of time and futile effort trying to arrange our world as though it were a chess game. But other people are not pawns (and we are not Kings and Queens). The most productive use of our energies is to focus on our own behaviour and goals, and leave control and blame of others to the side. Permanently.

5. Timing Matters
6. Shimon ben Elazar said: Do not try to appease your friend during his hour of anger Nor comfort him at the hour while his dead still lies before him. Avot 4:18.

There is a timing to everything, and sometimes, even if what you have to say is important, you must wait to say it. As the 18th century Irish philosopher Edmund Burke writes, “our patience will achieve more than our force.”

6. Be Less Judgmental

Do not judge your fellow human being until you have reached their place [i.e. stepped into their shoes]. Avot, 2:4.

We often know far less about others, even close friends, than we think. People all have very private places in their hearts and lives, and until we appreciate the world from their vantage point and what they have been through, we might pause before a quick condemnation. This is exponentially true in the world of social media, where shaming others and, at times, ruining their reputations, has become a daily sport, the digital equivalent of being thrown to the lions. We could all aspire to being less gladiatorial.    

7. Meaning is the Goal; Happiness is the Byproduct

It is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to ‘be happy.’ But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’ Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 1946. 

Opinion polls consistently show that near the top of every human being’s wish list is the “desire to be happy.” But psychologists have noticed that the more we place happiness as a goal, the more elusive it becomes. 

As Dr. Todd Kashdan remarks, “organizing your life around trying to become happier, making happiness the primary objective of life, gets in the way of actually becoming happy. In one study, people were asked a number of questions about how much they value happiness. [And] the greater emphasis put on happiness, the least successful they were at obtaining it…People putting the greatest emphasis on being happy reported 50% less frequent positive emotions, 35% less satisfaction about their life, and 75% more depressive symptoms than people that had their priorities elsewhere…In sum, the more you value happiness, try to be happy, organize your life around trying to become happy, the less happy you end up.” [see “The Problem with Happiness.” Psychologytoday.com, 9/29/2010].

8. The More You want, the Less you get

Happiness is a consequence of attunement between what man wants and what he has. The greater the gap between those two things, the greater will be that person’s suffering. George Grimm, The Doctrine of the Buddha, 1926.

Another fundamental misalignment in our lives is the myth that having more things makes our inner self content, as the Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor noted so well: “However hard we try, we will never succeed in filling an inner emptiness from the outside; it can only be filled from within. A lack of being remains unaffected by a plenitude of having.

9. We Suffer From Ourselves

Today I would say that most people who go to a psychoanalyst suffer from la malaise de siècle, the uneasiness which is characteristic for our century. Feeling unhappy, life has no meaning, drifting, a feeling of vague malaise…There is nothing wrong. They have everything, but they suffer from themselves. Erich Fromm, The Art of Listening, 1994.

The great Western curse is the fog of non-specific confusion in which we spend most of our waking hours. Bedeviled by life itself, since the Garden of Eden we have tried to eat from every tree, only to end up miserable and disoriented. “The answer lies within,” as Cat Stevens once sang, and so it will always be.     

10. Love Who the Other Person is, not What we can gain from them

A man eats a tomato, and when asked why he is eating the tomato he answers “because I love tomatoes”. This man does not love tomatoes, he loves only himself! If he truly loved the tomato, he would not eat it. R. Avizohar Harel, [Hebrew] A Complete Construction. 2005.

The Jewish conception of love is to focus on what we can bring to the other, rather than simply viewing the other as an object to fuel one’s fantasies or heal one’s life. 

11. Go Beyond the Self

If I am for my own self [only], what am I?  Avot 1:14

True fulfillment cannot be reached by the isolated individual, and his true good depends on communion with, and participation in, that which transcends him. R. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom, 1954.

When we are able to live for ideals that aren’t just about or own self-interest or aggrandizement, we find a curious thing ensues. Not only are we more helpful to others, but our own satisfaction markedly rises. Self-transcendence starts out as altruistic and ironically ends up as self-fulfilling.

12. Don’t Take it So Personally

In his essay “Of Anger,” the great Stoic philosopher Seneca tells of the Roman Senator, Cato, who visited the public baths one day and was arbitrarily shoved and hit. When his assailant tried to apologize, Cato replied, “I don’t even remember being hit.” Most things are not worth responding to, not because you do not value yourself, but precisely because you do. Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote in his journal, later published as Meditations, “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” 

You would not bark at a dog if it barked at you, because to be a dog is to bark. Alas, there are humans who will spend their time barking at you. Just move on.