Ancient Jewish wisdom has much in common with modern psychology

By Michael R. Mantell, PhD, in El Cajon, California

There is a fascinating connection between ancient Jewish wisdom and one of the most influential approaches to emotional health in modern psychology: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, or REBT, developed by psychologist Albert Ellis, Ph.D.

I want to be careful about this connection. REBT did not come from the Torah, Talmud, or Mussar. Ellis himself acknowledged that ancient Greek philosophers, particularly Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, influenced his thinking. So I would not call REBT “Jewish psychology.” That would be historically inaccurate.

But I do think there is something important to notice.

Many of the questions that REBT asks today are questions that Jewish wisdom has been asking for centuries. How much control do I really have over my reactions? What am I telling myself about what happened? Am I making something I strongly want into something I believe absolutely must happen? Can I experience an emotion without allowing that emotion to control what I do? And perhaps most importantly, what kind of person am I becoming through the way I respond to my life? That is where I find the Jewish foundation especially interesting.

The link is what you think

One of the easiest ways to understand REBT is through what is called the ABC model.

The “A” stands for the activating event — something happens. The “B” stands for our beliefs — what we tell ourselves about what happened. The “C” stands for the consequences — how we feel and what we do as a result.

Most of us naturally think that an event happens and then we feel a certain way because of it. REBT asks us to slow that process down. Something happens, we interpret it, and that interpretation plays an important role in what we feel and how we behave. This does not mean that events don’t matter. They certainly do. Loss hurts. Betrayal hurts. Rejection hurts. Failure hurts. Being treated unfairly hurts. REBT isn’t asking us to pretend that painful experiences are not painful. Instead, it asks us to look at what we may be adding to the pain through the way we are thinking about it.

For example, there is a big difference between saying, “I really wanted this job,” and saying, “I absolutely must get this job. If I don’t, it proves that I’m a failure, and I can’t stand it.” The first statement expresses a strong desire. The second turns that desire into a demand. That distinction is at the heart of REBT. We can want something very badly without deciding that we must have it. We can be disappointed without deciding that disappointment is unbearable. We can dislike something intensely without telling ourselves that it should never have happened. And this is where REBT begins to sound remarkably familiar to someone who has spent time with Jewish wisdom.

Pirkei Avot: Real strength is self-mastery

Pirkei Avot asks a timeless question: “Who is mighty?”The answer is not the person who can defeat everyone else. Ben Zoma teaches that the truly mighty person is the one who can govern himself, who can “subdue his inclination.” I have always found that idea psychologically powerful.

We often think of strength as the ability to control other people or circumstances. Jewish wisdom offers another definition of strength: the ability to have some control over ourselves. Think about what happens in ordinary life. Someone insults us. Someone cuts us off in traffic. Our child disappoints us. A colleague gets the promotion we wanted. Someone treats us unfairly. Our first reaction may be automatic. We become angry. We feel hurt. We want to fight back. We may want to say something we will regret five minutes later. But there is a moment between the reaction and what we actually do. That moment matters.

REBT would encourage us to look at the thinking behind our reaction. What am I telling myself that is making this situation so upsetting? Am I telling myself that this person must respect me? That this should never have happened? That I can’t stand being treated this way? Jewish wisdom asks us to take that one step further: Can I govern myself? The goal isn’t to stop feeling angry. It isn’t to become some emotionless person who never gets upset. The goal is to become someone who can feel anger without automatically allowing anger to determine his behavior.

That is self-mastery.

The Talmud: When emotion takes over

The Talmud is remarkably honest about human behavior. It doesn’t assume that people are always calm, reasonable, or in control. It talks about anger, jealousy, fear, shame, desire, conflict, status, and all the ways human beings can get themselves into trouble.

One particularly striking teaching appears in the Talmud in Shabbat on 105b. The Talmud describes someone who, in anger, tears clothing, breaks possessions, or throws away money. It makes a very strong comparison, suggesting that when a person’s destructive impulse takes control, it is as if that impulse has become the person’s master. The point is not simply that anger is bad. Anger is a human emotion. We are all going to experience it.

The deeper question is what happens when we surrender control to it. REBT might ask, “What am I telling myself that is making this anger so powerful?” Maybe I’m thinking, “They must respect me.” Maybe I’m thinking, “This should not be happening.” Or, “They have no right to treat me this way.” Or simply, “I can’t stand this.” Those thoughts can turn frustration into rage.

Jewish wisdom gives us another way of looking at it. I may not be able to control what someone else does, but I don’t have to hand over control of myself to what they did. That is a very different way of understanding emotional strength.

Mussar: Knowing isn’t enough

This may be the connection I find most meaningful. Mussar is a Jewish tradition devoted to ethical and character development. It focuses on what are called middot, the qualities of character that shape how we live. Patience. Humility. Gratitude. Courage. Compassion. Generosity. Responsibility. And, just as importantly, the parts of ourselves that can get in the way — anger, envy, resentment, arrogance, and selfishness. What I find so practical about Mussar is that it doesn’t stop with knowing what is right. It asks us to practice.

You don’t become patient simply by deciding one morning, “From now on, I’m going to be patient.” You become more patient by noticing when you lose patience, understanding what happened, catching yourself the next time, and trying a different response. Then you do it again. And again. That idea fits beautifully with REBT.

We can intellectually understand that our thinking is irrational or unhelpful and still find ourselves thinking the same way tomorrow. We can know that we shouldn’t take rejection personally and still feel crushed when someone rejects us. We can know that we can’t control other people and still spend a great deal of energy trying to control them. Knowing is the beginning. Practice is what changes us. That is one of the great lessons of Mussar.

Wanting is different from demanding

Perhaps the simplest way to understand the connection between REBT and Jewish wisdom is to recognize the difference between wanting something and demanding that we have it. There is nothing wrong with wanting success. There is nothing wrong with wanting love, respect, security, fairness, or for our children to do well. The problem begins when we turn those wants into absolute requirements.

I can say, “I really want my child to succeed.” That’s healthy. But I can also tell myself, “My child must succeed. If my child doesn’t succeed, I have failed as a parent.” Now I have taken a preference and turned it into a demand. The same thing can happen in relationships. “I want people to respect me” is very different from “Everyone must respect me.” Or consider fairness. “I want life to be fair” is perfectly understandable. But “Life must always be fair” sets us up for enormous frustration because life simply does not work that way.

REBT teaches that we can have strong desires while giving up rigid demands. We can say, “I really want this. I am going to work hard for it. I may be deeply disappointed if I don’t get it. But I don’t need it to happen in order to be okay.” That is not giving up. It is accepting reality without giving up our ability to respond to it.

The Jewish question: Who are you becoming?

This is where I think Jewish wisdom adds something especially meaningful to the conversation. REBT asks us to examine our thinking. Is it rational? Is it flexible? Is it realistic? Is it helping me? Mussar asks us to look at our character. What quality am I developing through the way I respond? And Torah asks a larger question: How should I live?

These questions overlap, but they are not exactly the same. Psychology can help us understand our thoughts and emotions. Mussar can help us develop our character. Jewish ethics can give us a larger sense of responsibility, meaning, and purpose. So when something difficult happens, perhaps the most important question isn’t simply, “How can I feel better?” It may be, “How can I respond better?”

Someone insults you. You may not be able to control what that person says. But you can ask yourself: Can I respond with dignity? Can I tell the truth without being cruel? Can I set a boundary without becoming hateful? Can I remain in control of myself even when someone else is not? Most importantly, can I refuse to let another person’s behavior determine the person I become? That, to me, is where psychology and Jewish ethics come together in a very practical way.

Putting it all together

I don’t see REBT, Mussar, Torah, and Talmud as saying exactly the same thing. They come from different traditions and have different purposes. But together, they offer a remarkably useful way of thinking about life.

Something happens. I have a reaction. I then have an opportunity to notice what I am telling myself about what happened. I can ask whether I have turned a preference into a demand, whether I am telling myself that something “must” happen or “shouldn’t” have happened, or whether I am telling myself that I “can’t stand” something that, although painful, I can in fact survive.

From there, I can separate what I can control from what I cannot control. I can decide what I want to do next. And I can ask what kind of person I want to be in that moment. Maybe I want to practice patience. Maybe courage. Maybe humility. Maybe self-control. Maybe compassion. And then I practice. That is where this becomes more than a psychological technique. It becomes a way of living.

The Jewish Foundation

I don’t think the important question is whether REBT should be called Jewish psychology. I don’t believe it should. The more interesting question is why so many of its central ideas feel familiar when we look at them through the lens of Jewish wisdom. Jewish tradition has spent centuries asking us to look honestly at ourselves. It has challenged us to take responsibility for our behavior, to develop our character, to control our impulses rather than allowing our impulses to control us, and to recognize the difference between what we can change and what we cannot. Most of all, Jewish wisdom reminds us that the way we respond to life matters.

Life will continue to give us things we didn’t ask for. People will disappoint us. Plans will fail. We will experience loss. We will sometimes be angry, frightened, jealous, hurt, embarrassed, or ashamed. The goal isn’t to become a person who never feels these things. That isn’t realistic, and I’m not sure it would even be desirable. The goal is to become a person who can experience those emotions honestly without being completely controlled by them.

A person who can say: “This happened, and it hurts. I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to pretend it is okay. But I can choose what I tell myself about it. I can choose what I do next. And I can choose, at least to some degree, who I become because of how I respond.” That is where I believe REBT, Mussar, Torah, and Jewish ethical wisdom can become more than ideas. They can become a way of living. And perhaps that is the deepest connection of all.

The link is what you think. The transformation is what you practice. The destination is who you become.

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Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D,, is a freelance writer based in El Cajon, California.