The Torah and Tal­mud are filled with pas­sages that under­score the impor­tance of friend­ship and inter­per­son­al rela­tions. The Mish­na called Ethics of the Father encour­ages us to ​“find a friend,” indi­cat­ing that doing so is one of the most admirable human achievements.

In The Joy of Con­nec­tions, the late renowned sex ther­a­pist Dr. Ruth K. Wes­t­heimer focus­es on the impor­tance of con­nec­tions and their val­ue as an anti­dote to lone­li­ness. The intro­duc­tion begins, ​“Lone­li­ness is about the qual­i­ty of con­nec­tions in your life, not the quan­ti­ty.” The book describes lone­li­ness as a twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry epi­dem­ic that can poi­son one’s life and is focused on help­ing peo­ple over­come it.

Lone­li­ness can be phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly dan­ger­ous, affect­ing both the dura­tion and qual­i­ty of our lives. Tak­ing her char­ac­ter­is­tic no-non­sense, prac­ti­cal approach, Dr. Ruth offers what she calls a ​“roadmap for over­com­ing lone­li­ness.” Because lone­li­ness can occur even when one is sur­round­ed by peo­ple, and because each per­son requires their own roadmap, the book presents one hun­dred ways to over­come iso­la­tion and become more con­nect­ed to oth­er people. 

Dr. Ruth looks at five areas of life that can either facil­i­tate or impede con­nec­tions. These are self, fam­i­ly, friends, com­mu­ni­ty, and tech­nol­o­gy. Tips regard­ing the self will prompt read­ers to think about how they might — or might not — engage with oth­ers. This can include how we look or dress, how we speak to oth­ers, or even how we reward our­selves for our accom­plish­ments. Very sim­ply, lik­ing our­selves can help oth­ers like us and want to be with us. 

Fam­i­ly can be a source of joy or pain; how­ev­er, there is often an unspo­ken con­nec­tion among fam­i­ly mem­bers, no mat­ter how infre­quent­ly they get togeth­er. Dr. Ruth sug­gests ways to lever­age those rela­tion­ships to pull our­selves out of the dark­ness of loneliness. 

One of the keys to hav­ing friends, Dr. Ruth explains, is being a good friend. The book is filled with ideas about how to do that: babysit­ting for some­one else’s chil­dren, men­tor­ing some­one, or being a good lis­ten­er, to name a few.

Com­mu­ni­ty pro­vides us with com­mon areas of inter­est. This may include civic con­cerns, school-relat­ed con­cerns, pro­fes­sion­al groups, or groups that focus on per­son­al issues. Being will­ing to get involved in com­mu­ni­ty enables us to make a dif­fer­ence and col­lab­o­rate with oth­ers on things that mat­ter to us.

Tech­nol­o­gy can also forge con­nec­tions in inter­est­ing ways. One of the book’s sug­ges­tions is to lis­ten to pod­casts, most of which invite lis­ten­ers to share feed­back and con­tribute to an online com­mu­ni­ty of inter­est. Pod­casts also allow us to build exper­tise in a par­tic­u­lar area and become a more inter­est­ing per­son to speak with.

The Joy of Con­nec­tions is a prac­ti­cal guide to cre­at­ing human con­nec­tions and com­bat­ing lone­li­ness. Dr. Ruth’s sug­ges­tions will give read­ers the con­fi­dence and con­vic­tion they need to address their concerns.