I send out daily Omer emails, and the other day I received some constructive criticism for a segment in my email for the 23rd day of the Omer:
The combined Sephirah for Day 23 of the Omer is therefore Gevurah sheb'Netzach, "restrained triumph", suggesting a powerful persistence which is employed with judicious restraint.
The comic books of my youth featured a villain named "The Juggernaut", who was an unstoppable force once he launched himself in a given direction. When we are young and less mature, there is a certain appeal to this apparent strength; we like the idea that when we set our minds to something, nothing will sway or distract us. This is actually a weakness, though; being uncritically hard-driving is likely to lead to mistakes. Keeping our strength in reserve for when it is warranted is a more mature, and more successful, path.
My correspondent suggested that use of comic books degraded the value of my message.
I'm not so sure. I agree that we should be careful that our medium not cheapen Torah's message, but I do think that popular culture can provide instructive examples, as well as a way for people to relate to Torah.
Case in point: The NBA playoffs, just a couple of games old, have already provided two such examples, for anyone wanting to teach a teenager about anger management.
First, Celtics star Rajon Rondo bumps a referee while protesting a foul call, getting ejected from the game, killing his team's rally (they lost the game), and getting suspended from the next game.
As ESPN.com reported:
The Celtics were seconds away from possibly salvaging an atrocious Game 1 playoff performance against Atlanta that highlighted so many of their usual deficiencies -- rebounding, lack of depth, poor transition defense, stagnant offensive sets, reverting to "hero" ball to force points onto the board -- when Rajon Rondo decided to really ratchet up his team's degree of difficulty. Boston's Young Turk got himself ejected from the game with 41 seconds to go and -- as a result of the one-game suspension levied against him on Monday for bumping referee Marc Davis -- has left his team woefully shorthanded for Game 2 on Tuesday in Atlanta. I really can't decide which was more disappointing: Rondo becoming unglued over a questionable call on a messy scrum for a loose ball, or his insistence after the fact he didn't bump Davis on purpose. Right. And Metta World Peace didn't see James Harden standing there when he leveled him with his elbow. Look, maybe Davis should have whistled for a jump ball before he called Brandon Bass for a foul. And yes, maybe Davis was a tad quick in slapping a T on Rondo after he approached him with a few choice words. Too bad. Maintain your composure. That's what great players -- and great teams -- do.
Then, last night, one of the Knicks' stars, Amare Stoudemire, followed up the team's loss by punching a glass fire extinguisher case, tearing up his hand:
Amare Stoudemire reduced himself to another A.J. Burnett, another Kevin Brown, another raging, self-absorbed New Yorker who put his own frustrations over his team's pressing needs. He cut up his left hand punching a fire extinguisher case after Monday's Game 2 loss to the Miami Heat, by far his most aggressive move of the night. After scoring the softest, least impactful 18 points a man can score in a playoff game, Stoudemire left AmericanAirlines Arena in silence with his hand heavily taped and his arm in a sling, and with security guards shouting for everyone to get back.
What, were the Knicks looking for an excuse for losing the series? As 680's Peter Gross reported this morning, Stoudemire's status for the upcoming games is unknown, but the fire extinguisher is day to day.
Showing posts with label General: Anger Management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General: Anger Management. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Anger: Weakness, not Weapon
An anti-anger rant, presented here for reasons that are best kept private:
Blame it on the cartoons and comic books and action movies, and their equivalents in generations past. Somewhere along the line, young human beings acquire the notion that anger is a weapon.
Think of every action hero who was trampled, stomped and beaten down, and who then, in his moment of rage, fought back and demolished his persecutors. A berserker rage energized him and drove back the foe, and he triumphed. He was galvanized by his outrage, he shouted from the rooftops, and he won over the crowd. From John McClane to Rocky Balboa to Popeye (“That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!”) to even Mr. Smith in Washington, the lesson has been the same down the line: Get angry enough, and you’ll win. Anger is your weapon.
So children assume that if they display enough anger, shout loud enough and long enough, say enough nasty things or hit hard enough, people will listen to them.
But the world doesn’t work that way. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: Angry people are a turn-off. Very few people listen to them.
Shlomo said it in Mishlei 15:1: מענה רך משיב חמה, A soft reply turns back rage. Abayye quoted this in Berachos 17a, saying that one must always speak softly to everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike.
As the Gemara, Rambam and Shulchan Aruch all stress, rebuke must be worded in a way that it will be accepted; otherwise, one has not fulfilled the mitzvah, but has actually sinned.
The last experiences of Eliyahu haNavi on earth are instructive in this regard. It was in Melachim I, chapter 19, that HaShem sought to teach Eliyahu to tone down his rhetoric, and when HaShem saw that He was not getting through, He told Eliyahu it was time to retire, and appoint Elisha as his successor.
Here is Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, author of austritt, on rebuking others and setting things straight. Herewith are the words of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in Horeb (paragraph 380), “But if you turn into a sharp and lethal weapon this word which is destined to bring life and blessings; if you seek pleasure in mocking the inexperienced and less intelligent, in deceiving and embarrassing him instead of teaching and correcting him; if you ridicule the unfortunate whose troubled mind is longing for comfort from your lips; if you put your brother to shame in front of others even for the purpose of correcting him; if you degrade your brother’s personality by calling him bad names; if with icy scorn and fiery disdain in your barbed words you shoot sharp arrows into your brother’s heart and rejoice in his discomfiture - oh then, do not dare to look up to heaven! Gd sees your bother’s heart convulsed by the daggers of your words, frozen under your icy scorn, humiliated under your ridicule. With Him the rejected soul will find refuge, to His Throne tears always find the door open. And you? The Almighty is just!”
And, anger doesn't work, for any number of reasons. Among them:
1. Anger makes people defensive.
2. Anger makes you fight sloppily.
3. People who disagree with you are not compelled to agree simply because you show you are sincerely committed to your position.
4. Anger doesn’t address the core disagreements.
And, perhaps most of all, an angry approach doesn’t allow the listener a way out. If I want to convince someone to change his stance, I need to provide him with a way to change his stance without looking foolish. If I get angry and yell at him, how can he change without looking like he was beaten into submission?
So anger is no weapon; it’s useless.
And worse, anger is a result of weakness. Anger is nothing more than frustration with the universe; things aren’t going the way I think they should.
The Rambam wrote in Hilchos Deios that only anger and arrogance must be entirely eliminated. Both of these appeal to basic human weaknesses, arrogance to our ego’s fear and anger to our ego’s frustration.
The Gemara says as much when it declares that anger leads a person to ignore G-d (Nedarim 22a-b). Why? Because anger indicates that I think the world should be different, should match my plan... instead of that of G-d.
Bottom line: We need to learn another way for convincing other people. If the best we can do is raise our fists and voices in rage, then there is no hope at all.
Blame it on the cartoons and comic books and action movies, and their equivalents in generations past. Somewhere along the line, young human beings acquire the notion that anger is a weapon.
Think of every action hero who was trampled, stomped and beaten down, and who then, in his moment of rage, fought back and demolished his persecutors. A berserker rage energized him and drove back the foe, and he triumphed. He was galvanized by his outrage, he shouted from the rooftops, and he won over the crowd. From John McClane to Rocky Balboa to Popeye (“That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!”) to even Mr. Smith in Washington, the lesson has been the same down the line: Get angry enough, and you’ll win. Anger is your weapon.
So children assume that if they display enough anger, shout loud enough and long enough, say enough nasty things or hit hard enough, people will listen to them.
But the world doesn’t work that way. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: Angry people are a turn-off. Very few people listen to them.
Shlomo said it in Mishlei 15:1: מענה רך משיב חמה, A soft reply turns back rage. Abayye quoted this in Berachos 17a, saying that one must always speak softly to everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike.
As the Gemara, Rambam and Shulchan Aruch all stress, rebuke must be worded in a way that it will be accepted; otherwise, one has not fulfilled the mitzvah, but has actually sinned.
The last experiences of Eliyahu haNavi on earth are instructive in this regard. It was in Melachim I, chapter 19, that HaShem sought to teach Eliyahu to tone down his rhetoric, and when HaShem saw that He was not getting through, He told Eliyahu it was time to retire, and appoint Elisha as his successor.
Here is Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, author of austritt, on rebuking others and setting things straight. Herewith are the words of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in Horeb (paragraph 380), “But if you turn into a sharp and lethal weapon this word which is destined to bring life and blessings; if you seek pleasure in mocking the inexperienced and less intelligent, in deceiving and embarrassing him instead of teaching and correcting him; if you ridicule the unfortunate whose troubled mind is longing for comfort from your lips; if you put your brother to shame in front of others even for the purpose of correcting him; if you degrade your brother’s personality by calling him bad names; if with icy scorn and fiery disdain in your barbed words you shoot sharp arrows into your brother’s heart and rejoice in his discomfiture - oh then, do not dare to look up to heaven! Gd sees your bother’s heart convulsed by the daggers of your words, frozen under your icy scorn, humiliated under your ridicule. With Him the rejected soul will find refuge, to His Throne tears always find the door open. And you? The Almighty is just!”
And, anger doesn't work, for any number of reasons. Among them:
1. Anger makes people defensive.
2. Anger makes you fight sloppily.
3. People who disagree with you are not compelled to agree simply because you show you are sincerely committed to your position.
4. Anger doesn’t address the core disagreements.
And, perhaps most of all, an angry approach doesn’t allow the listener a way out. If I want to convince someone to change his stance, I need to provide him with a way to change his stance without looking foolish. If I get angry and yell at him, how can he change without looking like he was beaten into submission?
So anger is no weapon; it’s useless.
And worse, anger is a result of weakness. Anger is nothing more than frustration with the universe; things aren’t going the way I think they should.
The Rambam wrote in Hilchos Deios that only anger and arrogance must be entirely eliminated. Both of these appeal to basic human weaknesses, arrogance to our ego’s fear and anger to our ego’s frustration.
The Gemara says as much when it declares that anger leads a person to ignore G-d (Nedarim 22a-b). Why? Because anger indicates that I think the world should be different, should match my plan... instead of that of G-d.
Bottom line: We need to learn another way for convincing other people. If the best we can do is raise our fists and voices in rage, then there is no hope at all.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Anger Management 101: Remember your goal
[This week's Haveil Havalim is here!]
This is one of those thoughts that are patently obvious, but I’d like to put it in writing anyway, if only to remind myself when I read it again at some point in the future.
Brett Cyrgalis, writing in a post on his New York Ranger blog The Blue Seats, points out that sports fans who boo their own team, during play, are defeating themselves. Or, to use his words:
“…to boo while the play is going on is a distraction. If you want your team to do better, don't discourage them while they're in the process of trying to win. That's what you should do to a visiting team. Like if the Devils were in town, and they weren't shooting the puck on the powerplay, it'd be a good idea to start screaming 'shoot the puck' at them so that they rush their passes and force shots and are disrupted from their planned routine…
As a general rule, when a player on your team touches the puck, it is a bad idea to boo him.”
Cyrgalis wants us to remember our goal: We may be angry, but we ultimately want to win, so let’s find a way to win.
Of course, Cyrgalis’s logical advice is not applicable to many sports fans - because sports fans aren’t necessarily rooting for their team to win. Many sports fans are looking for catharsis, and they’ll take it any way they can get it, whether with a victory or a brawl or an outraged outburst at ref, coach or player.
For many fans, it’s not whether you win or lose - it’s how you feel after the game.
On the other hand, his advice makes a lot of sense for the rest of us, outside the arena, and particularly for a rabbi: If you act to serve your anger instead of your goals, you lose.
It’s easy for a rabbi to get frustrated and angry, for many reasons. Among them:
*Rabbis are, in our own minds, on the “right” side. We are trying to run a shul and community, to help people fulfill mitzvot, to counsel people, and so on; clearly, we are the good guys. So if someone knocks us, it’s easy for us to be filled with righteous anger.
*When you’re in the rabbinate, so much of your job is personal. You spend 15-20 hours each day worrying about people, working with people, helping people. The result can be a loss of perspective, and individuals’ insufficiencies - failure to come to minyan, coming late to a meeting, not working on a project - can come to look like a personal attack.
*We keep very tight schedules, which don’t offer a lot of time for reflection. This is, in my experience, one of the most destructive elements of the modern rabbinate; scheduling the day in fifteen minute increments means that we don’t take the needed time to reflect before reacting.
One way to deal with this is to keep the goal in mind, always. If you want her to work on the project, if you want him to come to minyan, if you want meetings to run well, getting angry won’t help the situation.
Yes, you’re on the right side. Yes, it’s often personal. Yes, you need to move on to the next activity. But breathe, think, breathe, think, breathe, then act. It works.
This is one of those thoughts that are patently obvious, but I’d like to put it in writing anyway, if only to remind myself when I read it again at some point in the future.
Brett Cyrgalis, writing in a post on his New York Ranger blog The Blue Seats, points out that sports fans who boo their own team, during play, are defeating themselves. Or, to use his words:
“…to boo while the play is going on is a distraction. If you want your team to do better, don't discourage them while they're in the process of trying to win. That's what you should do to a visiting team. Like if the Devils were in town, and they weren't shooting the puck on the powerplay, it'd be a good idea to start screaming 'shoot the puck' at them so that they rush their passes and force shots and are disrupted from their planned routine…
As a general rule, when a player on your team touches the puck, it is a bad idea to boo him.”
Cyrgalis wants us to remember our goal: We may be angry, but we ultimately want to win, so let’s find a way to win.
Of course, Cyrgalis’s logical advice is not applicable to many sports fans - because sports fans aren’t necessarily rooting for their team to win. Many sports fans are looking for catharsis, and they’ll take it any way they can get it, whether with a victory or a brawl or an outraged outburst at ref, coach or player.
For many fans, it’s not whether you win or lose - it’s how you feel after the game.
On the other hand, his advice makes a lot of sense for the rest of us, outside the arena, and particularly for a rabbi: If you act to serve your anger instead of your goals, you lose.
It’s easy for a rabbi to get frustrated and angry, for many reasons. Among them:
*Rabbis are, in our own minds, on the “right” side. We are trying to run a shul and community, to help people fulfill mitzvot, to counsel people, and so on; clearly, we are the good guys. So if someone knocks us, it’s easy for us to be filled with righteous anger.
*When you’re in the rabbinate, so much of your job is personal. You spend 15-20 hours each day worrying about people, working with people, helping people. The result can be a loss of perspective, and individuals’ insufficiencies - failure to come to minyan, coming late to a meeting, not working on a project - can come to look like a personal attack.
*We keep very tight schedules, which don’t offer a lot of time for reflection. This is, in my experience, one of the most destructive elements of the modern rabbinate; scheduling the day in fifteen minute increments means that we don’t take the needed time to reflect before reacting.
One way to deal with this is to keep the goal in mind, always. If you want her to work on the project, if you want him to come to minyan, if you want meetings to run well, getting angry won’t help the situation.
Yes, you’re on the right side. Yes, it’s often personal. Yes, you need to move on to the next activity. But breathe, think, breathe, think, breathe, then act. It works.
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