Nachas Ruach, by Dr. Naftali Fish is an incredible book in many respects. It not only brings the reader an intense look at Orthodox Judaism practices during times of emotional crises, but also brings the reader an in-depth perspective on how the Orthodox Jewish community would often discourage treating mental health issues of various degree

The internet has increasingly caused discord within the Orthodox community, along with family problems stemming from the modern world. The ever changing world has more or less forced its issues upon the Orthodox Jews in ways they can not ignore. Dr. Fish has developed a unique program that envelops the fundamentals of Torah along with psychological treatment.

Dr. Fish has examined the Orthodox Jewish community amidst the current, social dynamics, and their reactions or lack of reacting to situations, and has formatted a model of treatment which coincides with, and its foundation is based on, Torah and its strong ethical values.

He does not seek to undermine Torah, within the pages of Nachas Ruach, but rather incorporate its values and teachings within the psychological aspect of treatment and guidance for those who seek help for mental issues.

He includes and examines the Twelve Step program within his framework, but also adds six more steps that are pertinent to Judaism.

Nachas Ruach, by Dr. Naftali Fish is an extremely intelligent book, yet one that the lay reader can comprehend. It is a book that is long overdue on the subject of the treatment of addictions and other mental disabilities within the Orthodox Jewish community. It is a book that demonstrates a unique approach to treatment, yet one that includes Torah within the stepping stones to healing.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, Jewish or otherwise, and feel it belongs in every university and college library, and in Synagogue libraries as well. ( )

Dr. Naftali Fish, a psychotherapist, uses his Orthodox Jewish traditional beliefs and practices to help cure his patients from problems such as stress, depression, drug addiction, marital and family difficulties, and to give them feelings of self-esteem. He uses Jewish values, meditation, and hypnotherapy to bring them nachas ruach, “contentment.” He tells success stories that prove that his system works on Jews whether they are religious from birth, just turned religious, or not observant at all. He emphasizes that “meditation is the highest path of all,” the best way to help oneself, and in his final chapter, he shows how meditation can be used for stress management, self-esteem enhancement, self-control, marital enhancement, and achieving a greater sense of closeness to God.

He ascribes to the well-known twelve step program, but he interprets some of the steps in ways that contain his understanding of Judaism. He adds six steps to the twelve, steps that are Jewish in content, yielding the number eighteen, which is chai in Hebrew, a word which also means “life,” appropriate for his program that gives new life to his clients.

The first of the twelve steps, for example, has clients admit that “we are powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.” Dr. Fish states that this step is “equivalent to the Jewish concept of confession,” which leads to “stopping the behavior and then trying to understand and modify its deeper roots,” its causes. The second step is to come to “believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” He understands this “as an intellectual acknowledgement of what Judaism calls ‘accepting the yoke of Divine sovereignty.’” The third step is “to turn our will and our lives to the care of God as we understand Him.” Dr. Fish emphasizes that this means making one’s life “God centered…let go…and let God in.”

It should be noted that this approach, as Dr. Fish states, “recognizes that the Higher Power is actively involved in one’s life.” There is nothing wrong in believing that God is involved in human life and acts to help and change people. This belief is very comforting and we can easily see how it helps people in distress. However, when I was in a high position with the US Army, and read a proposed regulation requiring military addicts to go through the twelve point program, I changed the regulation. I felt that it was unfair to those who may believe in God but feel he does not change people and to atheists. I had it changed to allow the addicts to enter a similar program if they desired. I am not criticizing Dr. Fish’s program, for his program is focused on people who believe as he does, and it works.

Dr. Fish, as I said, supplemented the twelve steps with “six additional Torah concepts.” His first is to get patients to recognize that they are created in God’s image, that they have intrinsic value, positive potential, and the possibility to grow. Thus, his program teaches not only “how” to stay clean and live properly, but also “why.” His second is to teach that God wants people to have joy in their lives, genuine pleasure from the world he created. The Torah, he writes, teaches the “middle position between the two extremes of hedonism and asceticism.” It is easier to “stay clean by validating their need to experience pleasure…in a healthy way.” The third concept is not only to get a sponsor, as suggested in the traditional twelve step program, but also a rabbi who is trained “with the ‘right style’…to relate to the addict from the perspective of the Torah’s wisdom,” who teaches the addict Torah teachings. The fourth is to encourage clients to devote time to study Torah and acquire a Torah worldview. The fifth is to get clients to view themselves “as dedicated to a higher purpose, that we do not drift along in our life, driven by momentary inclinations and desires, but rather adopt a higher goal and devote ourselves to it.” The final concept is related to relapse prevention. It teaches people with problems to realize that their problems and their addictions are enslavements, that they surely want to release themselves from slavery, as the Bible states in Deuteronomy 17:16, “Do not return to Egypt.” These are the ways that Dr. Fish liberates his Jewish clients by adding meaning to their lives. ( )