Abstract
Rabbi Sacks’ corpus provides us with a twenty-first-century philosophy of happiness, which draws on both Jewish sources and contemporary psychology. In particular, he highlighted cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and positive psychology as two approaches that could provide the scientific basis for a “new musar.” He saw these approaches as better aligned with Judaism than the so-called Jewish science of psychoanalysis. Rabbi Sacks endorsed the view of both Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology, and Aaron Beck, creator of CBT, that it is not events themselves that cause emotions, but our interpretation of those events, and we are free to choose from among competing interpretations. Rabbi Sacks also emphasized other key elements of positive psychology, including a future-oriented focus a balanced approach to positive emotions of the moment (such as joy) with an emphasis on the “more serious” elements of flourishing (engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment); and frequent references to the character strengths which are most highly correlated with life satisfaction. Ultimately, to flourish under the guidance of R. Sacks’ thought would be to both “self-actualize” and achieve self-transcendence, by becoming the best version of ourselves, attuned to our individual calling, and serving God with joy.
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Notes
- 1.
See my “Afterword: A New Musar?” in Radical Responsibility: Celebrating the thought of Jonathan Sacks, ed. Michael J. Harris, Daniel Rynhold and Tamra Wright (Jerusalem: Maggid Books, London School of Jewish Studies and Yeshiva University Press, 2012), 245–58; “The BEST: Tiny Habits by B. J. Fogg”, Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought, December 17, 2020, https://traditiononline.org/the-best-tiny-habits/; and “Little steps can make a big difference to our well-being”, Jewish Chronicle, January 24, 2022, https://www.thejc.com/judaism/all/little-steps-can-help-make-a-big-difference-to-our-wellbeing-OGOfOn2BKDfUNxZkiAu03.
- 2.
Rabbi Sacks refers to these psychologists several times in his “Covenant and Conversation” pieces and other writings.
- 3.
Rotenberg emphasizes both Christian and Greek aspects of western psychology and has developed “Jewish Psychology” as an alternative approach. The Rotenberg Institute of Jewish Psychology, established in 2005, aims to counter contemporary western society’s “egocentric, individualistic and self-assertive approach” via a “mutual-responsibility model that reclaims the psychological principles found in Midrashic and Hassidic literature.” (“Jewish Psychology”), Rotenberg Institute, accessed June 30, 2022, https://www.jewishpsychology.org/jewish_psychology_e.php).
- 4.
Suma P. Chand, Daniel P. Kuckel, and Martin R. Huecker, “Cognitive Behavior Therapy”, National Library of Medicine, May 8, 2022, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470241/.
- 5.
R. A. Emmons and M. E. McCullough, “Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84 no. 2 (2003), 377–89.
- 6.
As we will see below, R. Sacks argued that, in Judaism, simcha or joy is an even higher value than happiness or eudaimonia. However, in what follows, my focus is on the potential that he saw for positive psychology, with its focus on flourishing, to form part of a “new Musar.”
- 7.
Martin Seligman, Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being—and How to Achieve Them (London: Nicolas Brealey, 2011).
- 8.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 1998), 31.
- 9.
Liz Mineo, “Good Genes Are Nice, But Joy Is Better,” The Harvard Gazette, April 11, 2017, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/.
- 10.
The VIA Character Strengths questionnaire and other assessments can be accessed for free on Seligman’s website https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter.
- 11.
Signature strengths are one of the most researched areas of positive psychology. A selection of academic studies on the effects of interventions to help people identify and deploy their strengths can be found on the Values In Action (VIA) website: https://www.viacharacter.org/research/findings/signature-strengths.
- 12.
Ryan N. Niemiec, “The 5 Happiness Strengths”, Psychology Today, November 27, 2013, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-matters-most/201311/the-5-happiness-strengths. I will discuss these virtues as they relate to R. Sacks’ thought below.
- 13.
Jonathan Sacks, “Faith in the Future: Shemot 5780”, Covenant and Conversation, https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/shemot/faith-in-the-future/.
- 14.
Jonathan Sacks, “Faith in the Future: Shemot 5780”, Covenant and Conversation, https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/shemot/faith-in-the-future/.
- 15.
Jonathan Sacks, “How We Can Face the Future without Fear, Together”, https://www.ted.com/talks/rabbi_lord_jonathan_sacks_how_we_can_face_the_future_without_fear_together.
- 16.
Jonathan Sacks, “How We Can Face the Future without Fear, Together”, https://www.ted.com/talks/rabbi_lord_jonathan_sacks_how_we_can_face_the_future_without_fear_together.
- 17.
In “Alienation and Faith,” his first published essay (1973), R. Sacks critiqued R. Solovetichik’s essay “The Lonely Man of Faith”. “Alienation and Faith” was re-printed in R. Sacks’ first book, Tradition in an Untraditional Age (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1990), 219–44. More recently, he wrote, “I still take the view that Rav Soloveitchik’s account in that essay flowed from the specifics of his life and times. It remains a classic of the genre, but it is not the only way Jewish spirituality has been understood through the ages.” (“Faith and Friendship: Beha’alotecha 5778,” Covenant and Conversation, https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/behaalotecha/faith-and-friendship/).
- 18.
Jonathan Sacks, “The Pursuit of Joy: Ki Tavo 5775”, Covenant and Conversation, accessed 30 June, 2022, https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/ki-tavo/the-pursuit-of-joy/.
- 19.
Sacks, “The Pursuit of Joy”.
- 20.
Kohelet 3:12, 22, 8:15, 11:8.
- 21.
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow (London: Penguin Books, 2011), 14.
- 22.
Sacks, “The Pursuit of Joy”.
- 23.
Sacks, “The Pursuit of Joy”.
- 24.
“Zest”, VIA Institute on Character, accessed June 29, 2022, https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths/zest.
- 25.
Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World (London: Continuum, 2006), 262. The reference to divinely given gifts and talents leads me to see his approach as sympathetic both to the emphasis on “signature strengths” in positive psychology and, potentially, to Maslow’s idea of “self-actualization”, the penultimate stage in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, superseded only by “self-transcendence.”
- 26.
See, for example, Mordechai’s Schiffman’s recent book Psyched for Torah (New York: Kodesh Press, 2022).
- 27.
I am grateful to Erica Brown, Shira Weiss, and Joe Gamse for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
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Wright, T. (2023). Serve God with Joy (and Self-Actualization): Positive Psychology and the Thought of Rabbi Sacks. In: Brown, E., Weiss, S. (eds) An Ode to Joy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28229-4_38
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