Are you right to be angry? – Yom Kippur 5785

Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 13 October 2024

At the end of our haftarah reading in the afternoon service, the prophet Jonah becomes very angry. The book begins with God telling him to go to the great city of Nineveh and to tell the people they are going to be destroyed because of their evil ways. After initially running away, Jonah goes to the city and prophesies against it, predicting its destruction. When he does, the people of the city immediately repent, and God forgives them, immediately remitting the punishment that was going to be meted out to them. Jonah is furious with God – he says ‘I am angry to the point of death!’ He is angry because he wanted to see justice done – to see justice done to the city that had been so evil that God was going to destroy it in three days. He wanted to see the city go up in smoke, and instead he has to watch the people don sackcloth and ashes and repent, and God forgive them. As Jonah rages, God simply asks him: ‘Are you right to be angry?’

Three years ago, I was involved in the production of a book for the Movement for Reform Judaism. The book, edited by Rabbi Jonathan Romain, was entitled What Makes Me Angry, and Rabbi Jonathan invited members of the Assembly of Rabbis and Cantors each to write chapters on what made them angry. My role was more of a technical one, and I did not get the chance to write anything for it, but I did get to read everything that came in.

When this invitation was first extended, I was among a number of colleagues who found the title somewhat dubious. Did we really want to give the impression of lots of angry rabbis and cantors stomping around being enraged all the time? There was an instinctive reticence to associate ourselves with anger. I certainly do not want you to think that I get angry all the time. Certainly not in the way in which Jonah is angry.

And yet there are so many things that have happened in the recent past, or that are happening now, that are legitimate sources of anger – of my anger, of your anger, of everybody’s anger.

In her book, Anger and Forgiveness, the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that anger is rarely a good thing. She does so largely because she sees anger as by definition, containing within it a desire for payback against the one who has slighted or harmed us or those we care about.

Many of us might object to the idea that anger has to be directed at something or someone, and that anger must be accompanied by a desire for retribution. Can I not simply be angry at the universe for the way something has turned out? Could I not also be angry that a certain thing is the case?

And indeed, Nussbaum acknowledges a species of anger that she calls transition-anger, and which we might also call ‘righteous indignation’ – anger that says ‘How outrageous! Something must be done about this!’ In order to qualify as transition-anger, the thought must be free of any desire for payback or retribution against those who have harmed us – it must be entirely aimed at increasing welfare.

It is easy for us to lean into the unhealthy form of anger – to imagine and hope for all kinds of repercussions that might befall those we are angry with: that they will physically suffer; that they will suffer psychological pain because of what they have done; that they lose their job; that they are impoverished;  that their possibilities become limited.

The problem with all this is that it is based on what philosophers call ‘magical thinking’ – the idea that by punishing the perpetrator, the wrong that was done is somehow magically reversed. Or that we feel better as a result. Of course, perhaps we do feel better as a result – but at what cost? And even if there is a momentary happiness, will that happiness last? Will it be enough to sustain us?

On this day of days, we are invited to ask ourselves the same question that God asks Jonah in response to his anger: Are you right to be so angry? Is it good for you to be so angry?

It can be easy and even pleasurable to indulge in our anger; to be righteous in our rage at others – at those who have done us wrong, or done wrong to those we hold dear; terrorised our societies or polluted our planet. It is hard to break out of that feeling. It may feel like we are betraying victims if we stop being angry at their oppressors. It may feel like we are abandoning the pursuit of justice if we no longer seek retribution for unspeakable crimes. – It is hard to face up to the reality that retribution has no magical effects – that the punishment of perpetrators does not bring back the dead, that it does not nullify rape or torture or kidnap. It is hard to accept that it will make no difference – make no difference, that is, if it does not have at its core a concern for welfare.

Nussbaum points out that there is also a gendered aspect to the way in which boys and girls are socialised to anger as they grow up: we tend to expect boys to be angry and assertive, and for girls to be compassionate and empathetic. So, men might find it particularly difficult to put anger aside, particularly if in our culture it is a sign of weakness not to react in anger.

Nussbaum uses the example of presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis, who was asked during a debate whether he would want the death penalty to be imposed on someone who raped and murdered his wife. Dukakis calmly replied that he would not want the death penalty to be imposed. His total lack of anger at the idea and his calm response was perceived by the media and the public to denote a lack of manliness.

When we don’t get angry when we are slighted, we are perceived as weak – perceived as a push-over.

We need to find a way, then, in which to stand up for ourselves without anger. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi: ‘when I say we should not resent, I do not say that we should acquiesce’.  Just because we might not become angry, does not have to mean that we are weak.

And indeed, our Jewish tradition associates human anger with weakness, and counsels against anger when it is directed against others.

The medieval philosopher, Moses Maimonides, usually encourages his readers to following the middle path: not too much one way or the other, but the golden mean. In the case of anger though, Maimonides says, it is a case in which the a person is forbidden to follow the middle path. ‘Anger is … an exceptionally bad quality. It is fitting and proper that one move away from it and adopt the opposite extreme.’

In the Talmud, Rabba bar Rav Chuna says, ‘Anyone who gets angry, even the Divine Presence is not important to them.’[1] In other words, anger causes us to forget God. Rabbi Yirmiyah of Difti says that anger causes one ‘to forget their learning and increases foolishness’.[2] The rabbis quote the book of Proverbs: ‘A wrathful person abounds in transgression’ (Proverbs 29:22). So, anger causes us to forget God and leads us to sin.

When Moses gets angry in the Torah, the Rabbis state that certain laws become hidden to him.

So, there is a very strong current in Jewish tradition that teaches that anger is debilitating. It prevents us from seeing. It blocks our wisdom. It limits our possibilities.

This is not to dismiss the power of anger. It is not to say that we should suppress or repress our anger. Our tradition is cognisant of the need to allow anger to be processed. As we read in Pirkei Avot: ‘Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar said: Do not try to appease your friend during the hour of their anger.’ Appeasing someone in their anger is likened to trying to comfort a mourning person while their dead loved one is still lying before them.

As Rabbi Hannah reminded us on Erev Rosh Hashanah: ‘we must feel. Because when we deny ourselves the opportunity to truly feel, and supress our emotions, we may end up feeling more stressed and broken than we did at the start.’ If we suppress our emotional feelings of anger, it will just boil over later and be even more harmful and destructive – or turn in on ourselves and lead to depression. We must allow ourselves to feel – and if anger is what we feel, it is not to be suppressed. But nor should we allow the emotion of anger to affect the way we treat others.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav taught: ‘You must break the force of your anger with love. If you feel yourself becoming angry, make sure you do nothing unkind because of your anger. You must make a special effort to be kind to the very person you are angry with. Sweeten your anger with kindness.’[3]

Nachman continues: ‘Anger and unkindness arise when people’s understanding is limited. The deeper their understanding the more their anger disappears, and kindness, love and peace spread. This is why the study of Torah, which deepens the understanding, brings love and peace into the world and banishes anger.’[4]

Anger blinds us from Torah and from God – deepening our understanding of Torah dampens the effects of our anger.

When I spoke to a psychologist friend about anger, she reflected that in the context of her work with patients, anger was often or usually to be understood as a sign that something needs to change. In Nussbaum’s words, it is ‘an instrumental role’ of anger that ‘it may serve as a signal that something is amiss’.[5] Anger tells us that there is a problem.

In her contribution to the volume of angry rabbis and cantors, Cantor Sarah Grabiner quotes the feminist poet Audre Lorde, who argues that: ‘anger is loaded with information and energy. It is not something to shy away from or to be afraid of’ – but she also says that in order for anger to play that useful role, it needs to be translated into ‘action in service of our vision and our future’.

Not only should we not suppress our anger, but anger can also be useful. When it is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Anger should not be relied upon to give us a goal – but it might be helpful in achieving our goals.

Yesterday I listened to an interview on the radio with Tom Wheatley, the head of the Prison Governors Association, speaking about the reviewing of sentencing that the government is introducing, and as part of the conversation he commented that part of the reason UK prisons are overcrowded is because criminals are being imprisoned more because communities are angry with them than because they are scared of them. He also suggested that because of the public anger caused by some very extreme crimes, that politicians had felt pressure to increase rates and length of incarceration in general. What would it look like if the sentencing of criminals was based less on anger – less on a desire to cause harm and down-ranking to those who have offended – and more on the general welfare?

That is the challenge of Martha Nussbaum’s philosophy, and it is also the challenge that our Judaism sets us.

And so, when he wrote the introduction to the book I mentioned at the beginning, Rabbi Jonathan Romain wrote: ‘although we often tell people not to get angry, there is a righteous anger that is religiously appropriate. The question is, what do we do with it: let it simmer without achieving anything, let it hurt us more than the source of anger, or let it be a spur for change?’

And if we look at the titles of the chapters of that book, the rabbis and cantors of our movement are full of that righteous anger that considers the general welfare rather than a desire for retribution. Let me name just a few: the lack of inclusion of those with disabilities in community, the invisibility of women in Jewish texts, how society treats those who are sick and homeless, online abuse, cruelty to animals, conversion therapy of LGBT+ people, the treatment of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, division within the Jewish community, climate change.

These are all legitimate sources of righteous indignation. To be angry about these things is to seek to make the world a better place, rather than making individuals or groups suffer because of what they have done to us.

So, may this Yom Kippur be an opportunity for us to reflect on what it is that makes us angry. May this reflection help us avoid the magical thinking that leads us to seek payback against others. May it spur us on transition from anger to a concern for bettering the world around us – from vengeance to care.

Ken y’hi ratzon.

Shabbat Shalom and gmar chatimah tovah.

[1] Nedarim 22b

[2] Nedarim 22b. See also Resh Lakish in Pesachim 66b

[3] Likutei Etzot, Anger 1

[4] Likutei Etzot, Anger 3

[5] Nussbaum, p. 37.