In EmunahSpeak:
The Proteksia of Gentle Speech we
learned as per the Ramban’s Iggeres that gentle speech will protect one from
anger. And then in EmunahSpeak:
The Most Serious Character Flaw we
reported that the Ramban amplified on the importance of that piece of advice by
explaining that anger is a most serious character flaw which causes one to sin.
We went on to
say that While there are myriad reasons why this is so, Rabbi Yisroel Brog
tells us that probably the most important of them is that when a person gets
angry he loses his connection with reality, and having done so, even after he
calms down he will still be disconnected from Hashem. Not only is he, as Chazal tell us, like one
who is considered to have worshipped idols, and therefore as one who has no
G-d, but he is also like one who has no self.
But it’s more
than a case of losing it in the heat of anger, even if that which is
lost refers to one’s G-d or one’s portion the Olam Haba. Rabbi Itamar Schwartz tells us that the
presence of anger points to a basic weakness in a person’s emunah because a
person’s anger and emunah are inversely proportional to each other.
Whereas in EmunahSpeak: PLAN B
we spoke in terms of disappointment
as regards the shredding of our day’s plans by way of the inevitable speed
bumps that tend to morph wishful
thinking into the reality of the present, anger is cut from different cloth.
If you have a
flat tire on the way to the airport, you get temporarily upset because in the aggravation
of the moment your emunah has left you and you have forgotten that your current
circumstances came to you by way of Hashem.
But if you actually
get angry because of the flat rather than being simply upset it’s an indication
that you probably had serious emunah problems to begin with.
Rabbi Schwartz
explains that anger is a measuring rod for a person, through which the
extent of one’s faith in Hashem’s Providence
can be checked. The greater one’s emunah
in His Providence,
the weaker is his trait of anger. But
the further one is from faith in His Providence,
the greater will be his anger.
So if you have
been reading EmunahSpeak regularly for a year and a half and the intensity of
your anger has been weakening you should know to that extent you have in all probability ramped up
your emunah in Hashem’s Providence.
