D’var Torah – April 3

I hope this finds you well.

Three different manufacturing companies, three different CEO’s. One day, a major piece of equipment fails at each of their facilities and their production lines come to a grinding halt. Each of the CEO’s has a different reaction:

The first is heard screaming every curse word and proclivity known to mankind while throwing anything and everything that isn’t nailed down.

The second blames everyone in sight: “I bet you had something to do with this”, “I knew it was too early to promote you,” and “Look at what you’ve done to my company.”

But the third, the third takes a different and far more productive track. He calls in all the department heads and calmly tells them: “Folks, I’m not going to lie to you: this is bad, but it’s fixable and we’re going to get through it together. We are not going to blame one another. We’re going to be a team on this as we’ve always been; we’re going to perform our individual roles to the best of our abilities, and we’re going to help one another out. We’ll also find out what went wrong, fix it, take accountability, and learn from it.” He then starts giving out immediate assignments- customer service is tasked with writing letters apologizing to customers whose products deliveries will be delayed, PR to do a news release as well as a notice to the board of directors, the budget office to find out how much the breakdown will cost them, and maintenance to start running diagnostics and begin necessary repairs on the dead-lined equipment. The one thing he doesn’t do is lose his temper.

You can guess which employer most people would want to work for.

On the Shabbat that takes place on the hallowed festival of Pesach, we read a special selection of Torah, Exodus 33:12-34:26 to be exact. In it, God tells Moses of His Shelosh-‘Esreh Middot HaRakhamim, His Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. We read, “The ETERNAL passed before him and proclaimed: “GOD! GOD! a Deity compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness…” (*Exodus 34:6)

I’ve always been fascinated by this idea of being “slow to anger.” After all, there are so many stimuli in our daily lives that can so easily get under our skin, from our internet or power going out, to a traffic jam, a company saying they’ll deliver something by a certain date and failing to do so, something breaking, and someone saying something that is hateful to us. The causes for anger, upset, and consternation abound. It seems like they’re just sitting there in the ether waiting to get a rise or reaction out of us.

True forbearance, genuine patience, and actual calmness take discipline, the same discipline that comes with daily exercise, training for a marathon or weightlifting, dieting, getting to places on time, or an improved sleep schedule. It is a conscious effort, one that takes the whole of our mental, emotional, and spiritual strength in order to accomplish. Keeping calm, staying our emotions, and not reacting wildly or going off the cuff, is for most something that takes constant and consistent practice. It’s far more than a healthy habit, it’s meant to be the key to a happier, fuller, and richer life.

Our sacred texts and learned sages remind us of why this middah (value) is so important.

In Proverbs it is written, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city,” Ben Zoma taught, “Who is a hero? He who conquers his will,” and Leon of Modena counseled, “Who cannot command himself shall not command others.”[1] Likewise, the poet Ezobi penned, “Through anger heroes fall”, Rabbi Hisda preached, “Anger in a house is like a worm in a plant,” and the Book of Job reminds us, “Anger kills the foolish man.”[2]

Shortly before this beautiful holiday of Passover began, we searched and cleansed our homes of chametz (leavened food products) in order for us to enter the separate, unique, and above all else, holy time and space that is Pesach.

This special, and quite frankly, timely reading provides us with a challenge: just as we are meant to remove chametz from our houses in order to fully enjoy the sanctity that is Pesach, so too must we dispense with and cleanse ourselves of the anger that we have and exhibit in order to be holier and more worthy of God and the blessed potential that He has set forth for us.

Wishing you a Good Shabbos and a very Happy Passover.