I found my way to an interview with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Some of you may remember him as one of Martin Luther King's partners and allies in the Civil Rights movement.
Just before Dr. King died, he called Heschel a great prophet. He said, "Here and there we find those who refuse to remain silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows, and they are forever seeking to make the great ethical insights of our Judeo-Christian heritage relevant in this day and in this age. I feel that Rabbi Heschel is one of the persons who is relevant at all times, always standing with prophetic insights to guide us through these difficult days.1"
I discovered King's words to be accurate about Rabbi Heschel while on the hunt for resources to help me understand a particular scripture passage on anger.
The Christian teaching I'm most familiar with on this topic lacks depth and humanness. As a person who has struggled with anger my entire life - in all its various forms - I am so intimately acquainted with how it pulls me and exposes me and what regular practices I must keep to not give in to rage. I've heard it said repeatedly:
"don't let the sun go down on your anger, deary"
"anger does not produce the righteousness of God, sister"
"if you remember your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift at the altar to go and make it right"
And of course, the implicit "nice girls don't get angry"
But without a contextual foundation for how absurd life is and how desperate we are to figure out how to manage it, these feel like clanging symbols that add guilt and shame to our pain. The phrases alone do not satisfy us or make us well. We need holistic perspective and understanding about the way this emotion shows up in our lives.
Anger is misunderstood but it is a right response to injustice, sorrow, corruption, meanness, greed. It is a force, but if channeled properly, it can be a force for good.
"Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change." Audre Lorde
Anger is an invitation to listen, to pause, to ask. That's how I found Rabbi Heschel - in a pause - sitting with God, with Moses, Jonah, Jael, Jeremiah, considering the wisdom God has given me about my own anger and I wondered, what does the Jewish community says about anger?
A lot, dear reader, they say a lot more than I can share in one post. The discussions I found were rich and human and satisfying. Rabbis spoke of anger as idolatry - the willful decision to love yourself over others, indulge in rage, and demand your way. I also learned that the Hebrew word for anger is ka'as which is synonymous with sorrow. (Hello, we know this intuitively, yes?) Ecclesiastes 1:18 says, "For in much wisdom there is much anger; and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."
God, that’s true. If we dive into neighborliness and get close to pain, if we are honest with ourselves about what life is and why it is the way it is, the more we will rage and grieve—seen the news lately? Rage. Has someone you love gone through something terrible and unfair? Grieve. I love the quote, “I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” (Anonymous.)
I also found a great deal of teaching on coming back to center from the two extremes. From anger, rage, no self-control to the other side - controlled rage, false humility, and judgement for those who haven’t learned to control themselves. The center is the goal. It is where community, humanity, and connection lives. I felt affirmed in my commitment to neighborliness (even on the internet).
The center is always healthier than the two polarized ends.
As I read through Jewish resources, I remembered Rabbi Heschel marching with Dr. King and began watching interviews. To my shame, it is rare these days that anything arrests my attention, but I started transcribing this 1972 interview by hand. It captured me, made me want to remember everything, understand it, and internalize it.
I’m preparing a message on anger, so my thoughts are not linear, and I am burning the midnight oil, but I wanted to leave you with some of Rabbi Heschel's words. He absolutely blessed me this week - there are those who stand and speak the truth of reality when we want to paint it gold and change the honest story. We need to be reminded consistently that in times of crisis and war, political and economic unrest, personal challenges and disappointments, that God is not against us. He is with us, even when Earth ain’t making no good sense.
May God give us wisdom and grace to make peace with our humanity and uncertainty. I hope during difficult times that we can help each other lean into the mystery of God rather than try to carve out a hollow image of God that makes you feel secure. When the pressure’s on, it is tempting to make God into a sensible thing. Resist.
At the time of this interview, the assassination of MLK Jr., was fresh and hope in the movement, changing. The NBC interviewer was flummoxed that anyone would believe and trust in God on the the heels of such heartache and disappointment, so he asked,
"Why pray to God if he is not going to interfere if he is not going to intervene if he is not going to help? What is the point of prayer?"
The Rabbi responded:
The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose of prayer is to praise, to sing, to chant because the essence of prayer is a song and man cannot live without a song…
Prayer is not requesting. There is a partnership between God and man. God needs our help. I would define men as a divine need. God is in need of men.
In history, he cannot do the job alone because he gave us freedom. The whole hope of messianic redemption depends on God and on man. We must help him and by each deed we carry out, we either retard or accelerate the coming redemption. Our role in history is tremendous.
Absurdity plays a major role. In fact, it’s the greatest challenge to existence, not only to religion. The greatest challenge to all activities, to political activity, to economic activity, to all ideas of progress, is the encounter to absurdity.
If you were to ask me what is the meaning of God?
It is the certainty that there is a meaning beyond mystery, that holiness conquers absurdity. And without holiness, we will sink in absurdity.
God is the meaning beyond absurdity.
Amen and amen. Prayer, community, holiness will keep us from sinking into anger and absurdity. So, pray, sing, chant, beloved - we are in this together. I’m so glad you’re here. See you next week, after hours.
P.S. I’d like to write more about anger in the next week or two. What would you like to know or discuss about anger?
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/community/leadership/two-friends-two-prophets