Vayechi 5785 – All the Rage
Anger is all the rage these days. It infects personal, familial, and professional relationships and is the hallmark of our politics and the key ingredient in the algorithms that drive social media engagement. This is profoundly concerning as guarding against anger is fundamental to building enduring connections, families, workplaces, communal institutions, and nations.
Rambam (Hilchot Dei’ot 2:3) wrote that anger was something to avoid in the extreme, that one “should school himself not to become angry even when it is fitting to be angry,” and that a parent or communal leader who judges that a demonstration of anger will motivate those around him to do better, “should present an angry front … but should be inwardly calm, like one who acts out the part of an angry man in his wrath but is not himself angry.”
As Yaakov assembled his children around his deathbed to share his last words – his “blessings” – with them (Bereishit 49), the occasion is tarnished by the strong words that he shared with his three oldest sons, words that focus on one issue: anger. First, he rebuked Reuvein for his impetuousness – essentially his anger, as rendered by Onkelos – which he said had cost Reuvein any measure of future leadership, and then he declared his need to dissociate from Shimon and Levi whose fierce anger he cursed. Even – or especially – during this moment of bringing the family together, the evils of anger needed to be highlighted if the familial and national bonds were to endure.
How do we guard against anger? By being deliberate and thoughtful. The Alter of Kelm, one of the most influential teachers of developing character who served at the helm of the Mussar movement, guided his students to be “calm and collected,” urging them towards menuchat hanefesh and away from pizur hanefesh. On a personal level, he undertook to never express anger unless he had changed into his “anger jacket”, knowing that taking those intentional steps would allow his anger to dissipate. On many occasions when discussing anger, I have asked those present if they could recall a time when they had acted with anger and felt afterwards that they had performed well. Nobody ever said “yes”.
I own a book titled Erech Apayim (Slow to Anger). It was written in 1908 by Rav Avraham Yellin of Wegrow, Poland, on the evils of anger. In his introduction, the author notes that while some may see the work as unnecessary as everyone knows that anger is not a good thing, we often need reminders to act accordingly. He goes on to request that those who buy the book, even if they do not study it, should treat it as a “mezuzah”, leaving it on their desks as a visual reminder of the value of being calm. For years I kept the book on my desk in my former office at the shul I served. Writing this message reminded me to put it in my bag to bring to my OU office, but I could not locate it. I spent twenty minutes unsuccessfully looking for it and was about to lose my temper, when – thank God – I found it.
Each of us can play an important part in restoring peace and calm to our relationships, our families, our workplaces, our communal institutions, and our nation.