The Self-Destructive Damages of Anger
Very often, God shows us a particular situation and asks for our opinion. For example, suppose that we see a flaw or unfavorable behavior in our fellow man, and we comment...
3. Angry people invoke severe judgment against themselves
The Talmud teaches that God operates the world according to the "ATFAT" Principle (abbreviation for "a turn for a turn", see chapter six). The Almighty judges a person exactly the way that person judges others.
To elaborate, when a person is lenient and patient with his fellow man, God is lenient and patient with that person. Conversely, when a person is strict and exacting with others, God is strict and exacting with that person.
Very often, God shows us a particular situation and asks for our opinion. For example, suppose that we see a flaw or unfavorable behavior in our fellow man, and we comment, such as, "Look at that person's gross ingratitude; he deserves to be punished." Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches that such situations are very risky, since The Almighty usually shows us misdeeds that we ourselves are guilty of. The Heavenly Court sentences us identically like we sentence others.
Since angry people call for severe retribution against those who anger them, they invoke the same severe judgments on themselves; that's the ATFAT Principle in a nutshell.
4. Anger shortens a person's health and life span.
Your personal physician will be happy to enumerate the long list of anger-associated diseases and ailments. The following are a partial list: Heart disease, hypertension, high blood pressure, ulcers, indigestion, and strokes. Anger easily triggers asthma, and severely damages the body's immunity defenses.
If your current physical condition will help you reach the age of seventy, get rid of your anger and you'll live 'til ninety. Unfortunately, the converse is also true – anger shortens a person's life span.
5. Anger damages a person's income.
Two Russian soldiers were once on a training maneuver in the Siberian forest, in the middle of the winter at midnight. The light of the full moon reflected on the snow, so the woods were well illuminated.
All of a sudden, they heard a thud. A distressed wild turkey with a broken wing had fallen from the treetops. Within seconds, two hungry wolves arrived on the scene. One grabbed the turkey by the wing, and the other sunk its teeth in the turkey's thigh. The two wolves began a tug of war. When neither wolf succeeded to free the turkey from the other's grasp, they attacked each other. Viciously and mercilessly, they literally tore each other apart, until one wolf dropped dead on the snow. The victor limped away, dragging the turkey between his teeth and leaving a trail of blood on the snow. A few minutes later, he keeled over and died too.
The gruesome but profound incident conveys a powerful message: The turkey weighed more than twelve pounds; it would have been a more-than-adequate dinner for both wolves. Their greed led them to anger, and their anger led them to violence. As a result, three corpses in were left in the snow – the turkey and the two wolves.
The Talmud teaches a consequent rule of thumb from situations like the wolf fight: Wherever you have peace, you have abundance; with no peace, starvation is prevalent.
Often, husbands and wives fume at each other about financial difficulties just like the two wolves over the dead turkey. Such anger is detrimental to their cause, both from a rational and a spiritual standpoint, as follows:
Rational standpoint: When a wife is continuously angry, she seriously weakens her husband, and vice versa. A wife's wrath gnaws at a husband's confidence and self-image, two of his major emotional tools for coping with the commercial and professional world. The more an angry wife bombards her husband, the worse his vocational performance. Consequently, the negative effects of anger manifest themselves in the family paycheck.
When a wife doesn't have enough money to make ends meet, the worst thing she can do is to yell at her husband, especially if he's industrious and holding a steady job. An intelligent wife should encourage her husband and help him believe in himself. A husband with a supportive wife will normally make every effort possible to fulfill all of her needs.
Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches another rule of thumb – an anger-free home is a debt-free home.
On the other hand, when a husband is stingy with a wife, he shows her that she's not highest-level priority in his life. When he denies her a new dress for a holiday occasion, on the claim that he can't afford it, yet turns around and buys himself a box seat to the World Series or to the NBA playoffs, he's inciting a major domestic riot.
Such actions are an overt declaration that the wife takes back seat to the Yankees or the Knicks; no wife can tolerate the insult of being a second-class citizen in her own home.
A double-standard husband should take my advice and rent a flak jacket and a multi-layered combat helmet from the local Civil Defense headquarters, because shrapnel's going to fly in his house. Stingy husbands soon discover that they don't have enough money for themselves, either. The anger they cause wreaks financial havoc in the home.
Spiritual Standpoint: The Kabbalists teach that the blessings of abundance – income and financial wealth – flow from the upper spiritual worlds to our tangible material world by way of a series of spiritual pipes. One of the predominant "pipes" is the pipe of peace in the home. When anger prevails in a home, the peace pipe becomes clogged or bent, and thereby impairs the flow of abundance. Anger is therefore closely associated with financial loss.
6. Anger causes sadness.
True happiness goes together with holiness. Anger comes from the dark side, the opposite of holiness. Just as the dark side is the opposite of holiness, sadness is the opposite of happiness.
Therefore, whenever anger sways a person to the dark side, sadness sets in as well. Anger and sadness go hand in hand. You can't be simultaneously happy and angry.
Happiness is the best spiritual gauge in the world. The happier a person is, the closer he is to God. Don't confuse the happiness of inner peace and a tranquil soul with short-term thrills from outside stimuli.
People who look for outside happiness by way of various modes of entertainment always discover that when the vacation, the meal at the restaurant, the dance, the film, or the ballgame is over, they return to the humdrum of a gray existence. True happiness comes only from within, in an anger-free environment.
7. Anger causes fear.
As we learned in chapter two, lack of spiritual awareness is one of the two main causes of anger. Spiritual awareness and faith go hand-in-hand. A person with strong faith in God fears nothing, since he believes firmly that nothing can happen to him without God's will and consent. The Melitzer Rebbe often says that fear of God is like one-stop shopping – you don't have to fear anything else.
The contrary is also true. A person with no faith fears everything. Anger and lack of faith go hand in hand. Since angry people lack faith, they usually suffer from a long list of phobias.
8. Anger induces stupidity and bad judgment.
Wisdom and good judgment are from the holy side of spirituality. Anger stems from the impure, evil side of the spiritual coin. As in flipping a coin, either "heads" are up, or "tails" are up; both sides of a coin can't be face-up at the same time. Therefore, an angry person waves goodbye to wisdom and to good judgment, and loses much – if not all – powers of reasoning. (See also damage no. 11, below).
When anger overrides reason and ends up dictating national policies, governments waste thousands of lives and billions of dollars on senseless and needless wars.
(The Trail to Tranquility is available in the Breslev Store.)
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