Rosh Hashana arrives on Friday and so this is my last post before we welcome the new year. With an eye on Rosh Hashana as the Day of Judgment, teshuva (repentance; return) has been on the agenda throughout the entire month of Elul that is now ending, and very pertinent to me this year is a teaching from Rabbeinu Yonah (1180 - 1263 CE) who says (Sha’arei Teshuvah, 1:9), “The soul is cleansed of sin according to the degree to which one cleanses one’s heart.”
His point is that this season of rectification needs to focus not only on deeds but on inner traits, attitudes, thoughts and ideas – because this is soil from which deeds sprout, and therefore more fundamental.
In that regard, I have in mind issues of anger, because there is a lot of anger in my environment right now. I was born in Canada, live there now, and have spent all but a few years living in this country and so I joined the vast majority of my country-people in being incensed by the attacks coming from our erstwhile friends and partners to the south. It’s not so much the trade-related maneuvers, it’s the crass insults and barbarism that riles people up because, as we all know, Canadians are generally pretty even-tempered and polite. I am paying attention to my anger, trying to steer it so I have less to repent for.
I know I have been manipulated into the anger. It’s a sideshow, a distraction. Every good magician needs to master the art of distraction and if this one is going to get on with his self-enriching and destructive agenda, he has to hide the main event by ensuring that we are all good and distracted.
Making someone angry about something irrelevant is a very good way to get them not to pay attention to the really important thing that is going on. From this perspective, what takes place on the world political stage plays out on the stage of our own souls. When something makes me angry, I am challenged to deal with that anger, because anger so easily and quickly overwhelms clear thinking. About anger, Path of the Just cautions (chapter 11) that it flares in a person “Until one’s heart is no longer with him, and one’s judgment is destroyed.” At the point that I give free rein to my anger, I am no longer acting from sechel —discernment—but from the anger itself.
This is true for all strong emotions. If something happening around me stimulates a desire or envy or indifference or worry, those raging inner responses become my reality and my life at that moment. Not only will external events create unpleasant and unproductive inner turmoil, those emotions roiling within me will cloud my vision and influence the response I give to the world around me.
I have been watching my inner anger and standing back to examine it. Being able to do that is the fruit of my Mussar practice which, as my late teacher Rabbi Perr would say, opens up a space between the match and the fuse. Like any inner trait, anger is not all bad; it has its good uses. But when there is no space between the match and the fuse, anger is explosive and destructive. We have all seen and felt the consequences of letting anger loose.
Feeling anger is part of being human, and spiritual practice is what gives us the ability to stay sane and thoughtful even while feeling strong emotions. I would dearly love to get through life without being singed by the fires of emotion that can flare within me, harming me and those around me, but I have come to see that to be an unrealistic and unattainable objective.
That’s the lesson I take from a story in the Talmud (Shabbat 88b-89a) that describes what happened when Moses ascended to heaven to receive the Torah. The angels see him and object: “What is a human being doing among us?” They ask God: Why should the Torah be given to human beings?
God then tells Moses to answer them, but Moses protests that he is afraid they will destroy him. Eventually he does mount an argument, but focusing in on his fear, I figure if our greatest prophet at the highest spiritual moment ever in our tradition, right in the presence of God who summoned him, experiences the very human emotion of fear, then what hope do I have of transcending the human condition? We are stuck with being human and it is fantasy to think we will ever get so lofty that we will be “beyond” anger, envy, greed, lust and the like.
Better to learn how to deal with our emotions, to put their power to good and positive use as I try to keep my feet walking on the path toward holiness and, at the same time, endeavor to be an effective member of my society.
When I feel myself starting to get riled up about something, I consider those first sparks of emotion to be an early signal announcing something I need to pay attention to, and the first question I ask is, is this something consequential or inconsequential.
If the issue is consequential, my anger can be destructive, but it can also be a source of motivation and power. You probably do not recognize the name Kailash Satyarthi, but I think you have heard it. Remember the young Pakistani woman, Malala, who fought for women’s rights after having been shot by terrorists? She won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts, but in fact, though remembered by few, she shared that prize with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights activist who led peaceful protests against the exploitation of children and child labour in India.
I mention Kailash Satyarthi because he came to my city at some point and gave a talk about his work that was titled, “Everything I did, I did out of Anger.” Later I found that he had given a TED talk called “How to Make Peace: Get Angry.”
It’s so counterintuitive, but as Kailash teaches, constructive outrage can be a catalyst to action. He warns that anger not given a positive outlet will find a different one, either through destructive action or by eating away at us and fostering sorrow and depression.
But if the issue is not consequential, I have to recognize that I am over-investing in something of lesser significance. Does it really affect me if the American people want to give the name Lake America to Lake Ontario? In truth, that is no skin off my back. I don’t think the people of Deutschland are insulted that we call their country Germany, are they?
I have noticed that Canadians have responded to this present situation with a lot of mockery. The Mussar teachers steer us sharply away from mockery [leitznut]. “The mocker is arrogant, a person of pride… whereas the wise person is humble and lowly… and therefore does not mock other people” says the 16th century Orchot Tzaddikim.
Even older, Proverbs (14:6) cautions: “The mocker seeks wisdom, but finds none.”
Yet in truth there is no middah that does not have the potential to be used in a positive way. Just as anger has its uses in our inner universe, so too can mockery be an effective tool, if used wisely.
In retaliation for renaming Lake Ontario, we are renaming Canada Geese as Donald Ducks. Not only that, we are renaming Lake Ontario itself: it will now be known as The Strait of Our Moose.
This form of humour calls out the inconsequential as inconsequential and so it undermines the distraction. Instead of getting angry, we laugh. And when we laugh like this, we join generations of Jews (especially in Russia) who contended with tyrants through humour and mockery.
These two examples – anger and mockery – show us something important. There is no inner trait that cannot be put to good use. Mussar does not buy into the idea that there are Deadly Sins, including anger, envy, desire, etc. In the right hands, applied with wisdom and discernment, every inner trait can be put to good use.
I have quoted Orchot Tzaddikim a few times already. I’ll give that anonymous 500-year-old work the last word. “The culmination of a person’s wisdom is that one can master their anger.”
The point is not to become something we are not. The point is to become masters of what we actually are. What was true in the 16th century is equally true today.
May Rosh Hashana be cleansing for your soul, and a renewal of your heart, your spirit, and your connection to what truly matters. See you next year, God willing!
Alan