Previous
Ed Yisroel Susskind
For years, I have taught clients that Torah forbids us from acting and speaking in anger. We have a right to take unilateral action to protect our legitimate needs; that action should be done with calmness, courage, determination and forcefulness; but without anger, hatred, resentment or vengeance. People need to communicate their hurt, clearly and directly, and that communication is obscured when they speak in anger.
Some secular psychologists and marital therapists agree with this viewpoint. However, there are many other counselors who disagree; they propose that the cathartic venting of anger “clears the air” and makes for a more honest relationship.
I felt proud that the Torah offeres a healthier viewpoint in urging that a person totally minimize their anger -- in action, in speech, and even in thought. Anger is permitted by Torah in situations such as that of Pinchas, where one faces an enemy who deserves to be destroyed. This article, however, addresses close relationships such as those within a family, where Torah absolutely discourages rage.
Some years ago, a world-famous marital counselor, Australia’s Rabbi Leibl Wolf, asked an audience, “When is it appropriate for you to speak angrily to your spouse?” He answered, “Never!” At first, I saw that position as rather extreme, but then I realized that Torah views anger as a dangerously addictive feeling. Thus, once a person is comfortable with an occasional outburst of anger, the frequency of these outbursts is likely to grow. Anger is like an infectious virus that grows once people, chas v' sholom, allow some anger into their system. There are many negative emotions used by our yetzer horah to manipulate us into harmful activity, including depression, fear or envy. Of all of these, Torah views anger (and its companion emotion of arrogance) as the most treacherous.
However, I have recently accepted a nuance. I came across a Torah learning that suggests there may be times when direct expression of anger is appropriate, provided that that aggressiveness constitutes a very small fraction of the couple's overall communication.
Our Sages teach that Hashem gets angry for a very brief fraction of a second every day (Sanhedrin 105B). This view is based on the verse in (Tehillim,7:12) “Hashem is angry in every day.” ×?°×?µ-×? ××¢× ×?°××?-×××
The Talmud, as well as later commentators such as Rabbenu Tam, makes significant efforts to quantify the exact duration of that moment.
Further, our Rabbis note a contrasting verse (Tehillim, 52:3), “The kindness of Hashem is all day long.” ××¡× ×?µ-×? ××?-×××× . Here, our Rabbis make a second quantitative observation. Hashem’s anger lasts only a part of the day (×?°××?-×××), whereas his kindness lasts the whole day (××?-××××).
One might ask: Why is Torah bothering to tell us these two quantitative details? We already know from many places in Torah that Hashem experiences something that we humans can best understand as “anger.” Torah is not a generic psychology book, or a historical text, or a mathematical treatise. If Torah includes such a detail, that detail must have some instruction for us.
Perhaps that message is that our path as Jews is always complicated by our struggle between two poles of a dialectic; for example, when should we use chesed [kindness] and when should we use gevurah [severity]?
On the one hand Torah warns us ad infinitum of the spiritual and practical dangers of anger, and of the blessings that come to someone who avoids rage, revenge and resentment.
Yet there may be those moments when we need to use our God-given ability to be angry for the good: e.g., in order to find the energy and courage to protect our legitimate rights, and to express our true feelings.
The Rambam expresses this dialectic in two contrasting statements in his Hilchot Day’ot:
“[A person] should not be wrathful, easily angered; nor be like the dead, without feeling, rather he should display anger only when the matter is serious enough to warrant it, in order to prevent the matter from recurring.” (Chapter 1, Halacha 4)
“Anger is also an exceptionally bad quality. It is fitting that one move away from it and adopt the opposite extreme, even when it is fitting to be angry.” (Chapter 2, Halacha 3)
So, there may be moments when anger is “fitting.” But anger always poses a threat.
How can we minimize this hazard in our close relationships? By allowing ourselves to engage in anger only when it comprises a fraction of a fraction of our interaction with another person. Should we engage in a caustic exchange with a loved one, we need to neutralize its toxic effect on ourselves and on that person; we do so by engaging in a far greater number of acts of nurturance and affirmation. The yerida (the spiritual descent caused by the antagonism) then becomes a yerida l’tsorech aliya ( a temporary descent that causes the relationship to grow to a yet higher level).
May it be that we use anger only very sparingly. A minim is a drop, technically 1/60th of a fluid ounce. It comes from the Latin root meaning “least.”
May it be that we overwhelm those we care about with a liter of irresistible chesed. And that in doing so, we elicit the ultimate chesed from Hashem.
Dr. Yisroel Susskind, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist who practices locally in Monsey, New York, and internationally by telephone. He lectures on Torah and Family Psychology worldwide. Dr. Susskind can be reached at [email protected] Work 845-425-9531; cell 845-304-5481;