No-one who follows the narrative of the Torah at this time of year can miss the theme of anger. Pharaoh is angry with the Children of Israel, then rebukes his midwives; both God and the Children of Israel become angry with Moses; the taskmasters are angry with the slaves; the slaves are angry with one other; Jethro tells his daughters off for not inviting Moses home, and so on. It is not a happy time.
Much the same can be said of Israel today, where the politics of anger is reflected in outbursts of abuse, name-calling and demonisation of real and imagined opponents to the extent that extreme views on both sides of the current debates are regarded as normative and prospects for cooperation, compromise and consensus continue to fade.
Pirkei Avot teaches us about anger. It is assumed that we cannot suppress our anger entirely and maybe do not need to do so, but we should at least be slow to anger. Avot 5:2 and 5:3 illustrate how God, as a sort of divine role model, is extremely slow to anger, waiting up to ten generations before making a final decision as to what to do. Avot 5:14 also praises the person who is slow to anger but swift to regain composure while stigmatising as wicked the person who is quick to anger but slow to calm down. Rambam (Hilchot De’ot) recognises the need to keep anger under control rather than attempt to eliminate it completely—the position that Ramban appears to adopt in his much-published letter to his son, the reason being that only by distancing oneself from anger can one internalise the virtue of humility.
Frustratingly, Avot does not offer any simple solutions. Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar (Avot 4:23) warns us not to make things worse by trying to calm someone down when they are in mid-rage. Then, at Avot 4:1, Ben Zoma teaches that the person who is truly strong is one who curbs his yetzer, the evil inclination. Even if one assumes that expressions of anger are the consequence of yielding to one’s yetzer, there can be no catch-all technique for resisting it since every individual feels things differently and responds in his or her own unique manner to the sort of provocations that lead to rage. However, a few thoughts spring to mind.
1. Does your anger correspond to someone else’s happiness? It is common for people to lose their temper on losing a game, an argument or an election. This is potentially a sort of zero-sum rage since, if the outcome was the other way round, the loser might be just as angry in turn. In any situation in which there must be a winner and a loser, anger of this nature is predictable and unproductive.
2. Can your anger only be expressed in one way? Screaming, flailing our limbs and having a tantrum are the first ways we humans demonstrate our anger but, as we grow older and develop a wider range of emotional responses and social skills, we do have options. It is not always possible to do so but, where it is, we should seek to ask ourselves which outlet for our anger is the most effective, constructive or capable of giving the greatest relief or personal satisfaction.
3. Have we identified the object of our anger? In crude terms, anger can be said to be directed at one of three targets: (i) oneself; (ii) other humans and social institutions; and (iii) God. Once we know the target of our anger, we can consider how best to handle it. Anger that is directed against oneself—particularly when we are forced to take responsibility for our own mistakes—can be counterproductive but can also be addressed by looking at the cause of our self-anger and considering how we can avoid repeating it. Millennia of experience indicate that we have no reliable means of measuring how God responds to our anger, but that prayer might sometimes provide a more comforting and constructive substitute for railing against Him. That leaves anger which is directed against fellow humans, and this is the zone which is principally governed by Avot. No, Avot does not offer perfect solutions for all instances of other-directed anger, but it does encourage us to keep a lid on it to stop it boiling over—something that we can aim to achieve by practising the difficult task of self-control.
In raising this topic, I hope to stimulate thought and generate constructive suggestions about anger. Please share them if you have them.
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