“Some time afterward, when
the anger of King Ahashverosh subsided, he thought of Vashti and what she had
done and what had been decreed against her.”
(Esther 2:1)
Tziporah:
Every year as I prepare
for the holiday of Purim and the public reading of the Book of Esther, I am
struck by the opening lines of the second chapter. In a fit of rage—because the
queen would not appear when summoned—the king issues an edict to remove her permanently
from the palace. The next morning, the king is feeling sobered and bereft at
the queen’s expulsion. The remainder of the story provides lessons about
courage, personal integrity and individual responsibility to one’s community,
but I find the most important lesson in the first three words of this verse: a
person who acts impulsively, out of anger, comes to regret his behavior “some
time afterward.” The damage we cause through our irrationality and inability to
control our impulses cannot always be undone.
For this reason, the rabbis suggested that an ideal disposition is “difficult
to anger and easy to calm.” (Mishnah Avot
5:11)
Yasmina:
Tziporah, I could not agree
with you more. I have personally fallen into the trap of spontaneous anger numerous
times and regretted my feelings shortly after. As you might imagine, there are
many Hadiths that provide practical advice
about how to deal with and control anger. They all exalt the virtues of
patience, kindness, and forgiveness. One
in particular is identical to your quote from the Mishnah; another notes that a burst of anger can negate the
positive effects of a person’s fast. I
find the strongest encouragement to those who practice restraint of their anger
in the following verse: “Be quick in the race for forgiveness from your Lord
and for a Garden whose width is that of the heavens and of the earth, prepared
for the righteous, those who spend freely whether in prosperity or in
adversity; who restrain anger and pardon all men; for God loves those who do
good.” (Al-i-Imram 3:133-134)
Grace:
I
must echo what both of you say about anger and the need for self-control.
A passage in Christian scripture that I find instructive is “Be angry, but do
not sin: let not the sun go down on your wrath.” (Ephesians 4:26) This verse
seems to acknowledge that anger as an emotion alone is not sinful, but that
rash actions stemming from anger can be sinful indeed. The quotation
continues with the admonition to put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor,
and evil speaking, and “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” (Eph 4: 32) As
is true of so many dictums in each of the holy texts we are citing, these words
are much easier to say than to practice!
