From Storms of Anger to Healing Rain

Her mother gave her a bag of nails and told her that every time she lost her temper or insulted somebody she must hammer a nail into the back of their fence.

The first day the girl hit 14 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as she learned to control her anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled. She discovered it was easier to hold her temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

We come here tonight on Kol Nidre, all of us sinners. We can feel relief, as we read the Yom Kippur confession, of the many sins that we have not committed. We can feel confident because of the good we have brought into the world in the past year. But among the sins that we enumerate in the five recitations of the vidui during the course of Yom Kippur, there is one that we all commit. It is the sin of anger.

Try now to remember a time when you were angry. Perhaps you said something you shouldn’t. Perhaps you threw something, hit someone. Perhaps you are now too ashamed to even remember. Or perhaps you have succeeded in thwarting your own anger. But try to remember, whether it was last week, last year, or a long time ago.

Kevin Brown, a pitcher for the New York Yankees, was so angry after pitching a losing game this past summer, that he punched a wall in the clubhouse and broke his hand. Though it was not his pitching hand, he can’t play for the rest of the season.

Some of us commit angry acts. We break things; we hurt people, we hurt ourselves. Before we can atone before God this Yom Kippur, we need to ask forgiveness of those we have harmed by acts of physical violence.

Most of us manage to control our anger before we become violent against another. But the most common way we express our anger is just as hurtful—through our words.

A father speaks regrettable words to his son and they stop talking for years.

Angry words lead a couple to end their marriage.

A child uses hurtful words to an aging parent, who passes on before the breech can be mended.

The vice president of the United States lost his temper on the floor of the U.S. Senate, a place known for civil speech, and spoke an unmentionably offensive word to another Senator.

The writer Ambrose Bierce once said, "Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."

Now remember a time when someone railed in anger against you. Remember how it felt to hear the raised voice and the stinging words. Perhaps you have been the victim of violent anger or abuse from someone close to you. Perhaps a total stranger insulted you, assaulted you, humiliated you.

Knowing what that feels like, why do we allow ourselves to become angry? Why do we use words that we would never accept from another human being? What can we learn about ourselves, and about our anger, on this Yom Kippur, when we can take the time and open our minds, when we can make a new start?

The Torah abounds with stories of angry leaders and prophets—Moses hitting the rock, Jonah and Nineveh, to name two. But the Torah does not condone angry responses. Moses is not allowed to enter the Promised Land as punishment for hitting the rock in anger. Jonah is thrown into the sea, is swallowed by an enormous fish before he learns to quell his anger at those who sin. Even God’s anger is not acceptable. When God threatens to destroy the Children of Israel worshiping the Golden Calf, Moses must subdue God’s own anger through compassionate intervention. As shocking as it might be to consider that God can be so filled with anger, the Torah is making a point. That is, anger is a natural human emotion, and is a predictable response to situations that are frustrating or disappointing, and to actions that are offensive or hurtful.

Anger blinds us to our own good sense. As Maimonides taught in his Code of Jewish Law, Mishne Torah:
" Regarding anger, the sages said the following: 'If one is a wise man, his wisdom leaves him; if he is prophet, his prophesy leaves him. The life of the irate is not true life (Daot, chapter 2:3)

In such an irrational state, we do not foresee the consequences of our actions—the damage we inflict when we raise our voices, scrunch up our faces, or lift a hand in anger. The flames of anger destroy friendships, scorch families, and singe total strangers. And, like a curved sword, anger returns to damage us as well.

As a rabbi, I have struggled with my own anger on many occasions.
Several years ago, I went away for three days of silent meditation. At the retreat, I felt so successful in becoming calm and quieting my mind. Though it was initially difficult to spend a day with other people without talking, I felt good. Away from others and their demands, serenity came easily.

But at the end of the second day, I needed to call home, to touch base. I couldn’t abandon my family entirely for 3 days without hearing their voices. But when I called, there was no answer. As the phone rang and rang I found myself becoming more and more upset. I had angry thoughts—how dare they go out when they should have been home! Where could they be?

As I felt the anger tighten in my shoulders and neck, and my mind went wild with accusations, I suddenly stopped to pay attention to the flow of my emotions. I used what I had learned in day-long meditation. And what I realized, I will never forget. Because I wasn’t really angry at all. I had no reason to be angry at the people I love. No, I was disappointed. That was it. My disappointment had been masked, consumed by a sense of anger and blame, but at heart, what I really felt was I missed them. When I realized that all I wanted was to talk to them, I felt so glad that I could stop being angry. Instead, I spent a few minutes feeling sad.

I was very lucky to make that observation when I did. No one was hurt and the anger vanished. But more often we are not so lucky. And the consequences often turn out to hurt us more than those who receive our anger.

Let me take a moment to separate feeling anger from acting out of anger.

Do you remember the story of Abraham arguing with God to forestall the destruction of the wicked city of Sodom? The people of that city, according to the midrash, were known for their mean and vindictive behavior. They represented the opposite of everything that Abraham stood for: while he opened his home to strangers, they abused strangers. Abraham had every right to seek justice against the residents of town. Yet he urged God to prevent the destruction of the innocents among them. In this tale, the Midrash finds a lesson about anger as a destructive force.

“Will you sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?”
Commentators notice the word “ha-af” which here means “even”—even the innocent with the guilty. But the word is superfluous in this context, and therefore adds another meaning. “Af” in Biblical Hebrew is another word for anger. And so one might read Abraham’s question to God, “In your anger, would you sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?”

One rabbi taught: 'the verse means, ha’af tispe, put an end to anger'. A second taught: 'the anger which you bring into the world will destroy the righteous with the wicked.' And a third added: 'the human being is overwhelmed by anger, but Hashem controls anger.'

The rabbis express Abraham’s all-too-human fear: that God was acting out of anger, and that even though the anger was justified, it was very dangerous.

So the last rabbi optimistically responds that, unlike human beings, God “controls anger.” In the words of the prophet Isaiah, we find a similar statement of faith about God’s anger.
As I swore that the waters of Noah
Nevermore would flood the earth,
So I swear that I will not
Be angry with you or rebuke you.
(54:9) Perhaps we believe that God can make such an oath. But is this a realistic promise for us? Is it possible to conquer one’s anger completely?

Studies show that feelings of anger need to be dealt with—calmed, expressed, or channeled in a positive direction. Those who hold their anger in are more likely to remain hostile, letting their anger out in other ways. Repressed anger is bound to get out and hurt someone. Inevitably, it leaks out in other mean and spiteful ways. We all know how anger can come home with us from work and invade our family relationships. We take out unexpressed anger on family and on strangers alike. And ultimately, we isolate ourselves from those who we need and love the most.

So when the Rabbis say “Hashem controls anger,” they do not mean that God “holds back” the anger. Anger is not a fire you can put out with a bucket of water. Anger is like a storm cloud that carries rain wherever it goes. Though the storm is destructive, the rain need not be. It’s our job to turn the storm clouds into healing rain.

From the story of Abraham, we learn that it is possible to separate our pursuit of justice from the anger that fuels it. Several years ago, I was teaching a pre-Rosh Hashanah workshop about the prophet Jonah. The message was to condemn Jonah’s anger, and with it, all manifestations of anger. Ashley Adams attended that workshop and he confronted me with an important insight. Not all anger is bad. He taught me about “hot anger”—the uncontrolled anger that comes from emotion and seeks to harm others, and about “cold anger”—a deliberate use of anger for good.

We all use “cold” anger. As parents, we use it to make an impression on a child who runs into the street or stays out too late at night. Used wisely, it serves to protect those we love and to teach a lesson for the future. It is an anger that author Mary Beth Rogers, in describing its use in political organizing, has called “an emotion of hope, not of despair” (Cold Anger, p.10).

The ancient prophets were skilled at cold anger. In the haftarah reading for Yom Kippur, God commands the prophet Isaiah,
Cry with full throat, without restraint;
Raise your voice like a ram’s horn!
Declare to My people their transgression,
To the House of Jacob their sin.
And what is the sin?
Because on your fast day
You see to your business
And oppress all your laborers!
4Because you fast in strife and contention,
And you strike with a wicked fist! (Isaiah 58:1-4)
Commentator Erica Brown reminds us of the power of prophetic anger: “Without anger towards injustice, racism, or poverty it would be difficult to promote social change.” We have many reasons to be angry in our world—not stemming from personal wounds or arising from a false sense of entitlement, but out of a broad-based concern for the injustice of the world.

So, there are times when anger is justified, even mandated.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch used to restrain an angry outburst until he had looked into the codes to learn whether anger is permissible in the particular instance. But how much genuine anger could he feel after searching for the authority in the Shulchan Aruch?

The lesson of this story is similar to the admonition to count to ten, to take a time out when you feel yourself getting out of control. These are important ways to manage our anger. Yet another lesson is that there are times when it is permissible to be angry. But whether we are angry with a person or ranting against an injustice in the world, we can always benefit from separating the emotion we feel from what we want to communicate.

The evening of Yom Kippur is a good time to start learning to separate our feelings of anger from the way we express ourselves. On Yom Kippur, we can use the solemn atmosphere and the intensity that comes from fasting to begin to figure out, what makes us lash out in anger? Is it disappointment with those who don’t meet our expectations? Is it frustration with the world that doesn’t always go our way? Is it a fear of an old wound that has been exposed?

On Yom Kippur, we ask God to forgive us for our outbursts of anger. But for that to take effect, we also need to be prepared to forgive those who anger us.

As the story of the nails in the fence, illustrates, if someone comes to us to ask forgiveness, and if he or she demonstrates a sincere desire to change, then we have no choice. We are obligated to grant forgiveness. That is the best scenario and promises true reconciliation.

But what of those who don’t knock on our door? What about people in our past who have moved away, passed on, or remain unreachable? Can we forgive them too?

We may not be able to grant them forgiveness, but we can learn to let go. We carry around so many scars, so many perceived slights and remembered wrongs. They weigh us down. They eat at us. Do they right the wrong? Do they bring justice? No. In the end, the frustrations and disappointments, the stones of anger that we harbor in our hearts do more harm to us than to anyone else. Researchers in forgiveness have demonstrated that heart attack patients who acted in a more forgiving way learned to demonstrate less anger and hostility and lived longer than those who did not forgive. Forgiveness is a path to health, a way to a better, less angry life.

When we forgive, we are not changing what happened, or absolving others of responsibility for their own actions. Likewise, forgiveness does not delete memories, but it can dissolve the feelings that go with the memory. As one psychologist suggests when dealing with old hurts, `Rent them a small room, not the whole house.''

And remarkably, when we learn to let go of past hurts, we become less judgmental in the present. The more forgiving we become, the more compassionate we become. The more compassionate we become, the more adept we can be at calming our anger.

How do you learn to let go? What works for you? (give people a chance to respond, briefly.)

We learn in the Hebrew Bible that like us, God gets angry.

We learn in the Talmud that, like us God prays.

What is God’s prayer? “May it be My will that My compassion may suppress My anger, and that My compassion may prevail over all My other attributes, so that I will behave toward my children with more compassion than justice. (Berachot 7a)

If it works for God, it should work for us too. May that be our own prayer, as well.

Rabbi Barbara Penzner
Kol Nidre 5765