Anger Destroys Lives

 

 

We continue in the topic of Emuna and Emotions.  Having examined the destructive powers of sadness (part 1), we now address anger and its costly consequences.  Without emuna we are no match against anger.

 

 

Anger destroys lives. Anger ranges from the quiet fuming embers in the heart to outward rage and expressions of violence. Anger can be unfounded, based on an imagined reason, or apparently justified. Since our sages condemn the anger of the apparently justified type, all other forms of anger should certainly be avoided.

 

Everyone desires to break away from the chains of anger, but few really succeed. The key to removing anger from our lives is emuna.

 

 

Anger management and such partial solutions as self-control exercises fail to uproot anger. Only emuna can completely dislodge anger from a person’s heart. People with high levels of emuna are not affected by anger.

 

Since a person comes to this earth for the purpose of soul correction, it’s virtually impossible to avoid situations that stimulate feelings of anger. Hashem pits us against all types of people and events that are not to our liking; with emuna, we realize that everything is from Hashem and for the best. Without emuna, we’re dangerously susceptible to anger.

 

By living our emuna, we avoid anger. Even when others treat us unfairly, insult us, or cause us extreme injustice, by focusing on Hashem and remembering that everything He does is for our ultimate benefit, we don’t succumb to anger.

 

Even when things don’t go the way we’d like them too, or when we’re disappointed in ourselves or in our shortcomings, with emuna, we’re not upset; we realize that overcoming life’s difficulties and our own shortcomings are the very reason we’re alive on this earth, so we don’t get angry. Instead, we simply roll up our sleeves, and get to work!

 

When we observe life’s difficulties as personal messages from Hashem, not only do we avoid anger, but we achieve a high level of gratification. Nothing is more satisfying than receiving a message from Hashem, understanding it, and responding with the necessary action.

 

 

With emuna, we uproot anger; with spiritual awareness, we acquire emuna. Therefore, in order to uproot anger from our lives, we have to beg Hashem to help us achieve spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness is the cognizance that Hashem runs the world and does everything for a specific purpose. Consequently, nothing in the world is random or coincidental.

 

Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon) said, "Anger rests in the bosom of fools" (Kohelet 7:10). Foolishness is ignorance, and ignorance is the opposite of awareness. As such, the more a person is spiritually cognizant of Hashem, the less he or she is subject to anger. Children, for example, easily become upset when they don’t get their way, because they haven’t yet developed spiritual awareness. Maturity therefore is not so much a function of chronological age as it is of spiritual awareness.

 

A person with highly developed spiritual awareness and strong emuna won’t be upset even when subjected to extreme insult or humiliation, for he or she realizes that their trial or tribulation is coming from Hashem to facilitate their own soul correction. On the contrary, they’re happy!

 

 

Anger has more of a negative effect on the body and the soul than all the transgressions of the Torah. The Zohar teaches that even if a person has learned Torah extensively and performed good deeds, he or she loses all merit by succumbing to anger. Anger resembles a spiritual acid that literally corrodes a soul. The Zohar calls anger a "false god" that chases away a soul’s holiness.

 

Angry people consequently lose all connection with Hashem. When a person gets angry, his or her soul departs; dark-side forces of evil instantly fill the void created by the soul’s exit and gain control of the angry person. One must work very hard to escape such a spiritual abyss. Teshuva can only be effective when accompanied by learning emuna and overcoming anger. One must uproot anger to regain the holiness of the soul.

 

 

We often hear inexplicable and unexpected phenomena such as:

 

* The couple that had a great marriage, and now all of a sudden, the wife is demanding a divorce;

 

* The two partners that built a thriving business, and now one is demanding that the other buy out or sell out;

 

* A person was making a nice living, and suddenly he or she can’t make ends meet for no apparent reason;

 

* A formerly level-headed person suddenly begins acting like a wild man.

 

The list is long. One master key unlocks all of the above riddles – anger. By becoming angry and losing his or her holy soul, the person’s life took a sudden turn for the worst. The wife no longer wants to live with a husband whose actions are governed by the dark side. Abundance eludes such a person, as do sanity and reason as well.

 

Nothing in the world is worth losing the holy soul. Anger is worse than the allegorical person that sells his soul for some amenity, for with anger, one gets nothing in return. On the contrary, even this world becomes a purgatory.

 

 

The only way to purify a heart of anger is to learn and relearn the principles of emuna. Once we learn about emuna, we must pray to Hashem and ask that emuna become second nature, like breathing or seeing. The more we attain emuna, the more we drive away anger and purify the heart.

 

 

The following principles may sound harsh, but the more you think about them, the more you’ll realize how true they are:

 

 

Difficulties – like everything else in life – come from Hashem to stimulate teshuva, to encourage correction of a detrimental trait or bad habit, or to cause a person to seek Hashem.

 

Many individuals seek a life of leisure and are therefore angered by life’s difficulties. They have no idea what they’re mission is on this earth, namely, to correct their souls. Correcting the soul – like any other worthwhile accomplishment – requires dedication and hard work, whereas a picnic requires neither. Life is no picnic, but a picnic can’t correct a soul.

 

In light of the above, anger is frequently the result of moral and spiritual laziness, when a person isn’t willing to rise to the challenges that Hashem presents for the person’s own benefit.