Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our second class in our series on Igueras Haramban. OK, we began last week with an introductory shear, which did two things. We had a very, very brief sketch of the life of the Ramban, the influence of the Ramban. And some of the theories, even though no one really has definitive or conclusive proof about the context of this letter, when did he write it, how old was he, where was he, but we know this was a letter that he wrote to his son. And it's a fascinating letter, which has become a staple of Jewish life, Jewish thought, Jewish religious devotion, and contemplation. And even though it's a relatively short letter, it has a tremendous amount of significance as we began to explore last week. In addition to the historical, biographical introduction that we gave last week, we also started the letter, in the sense that we read his introduction. He began the letter with an introductory "possoc," "shema binimu saravicha," of "altitos" "torasi mecha," which is a quote, of course, one of the most famous Sukhim in the first chapter of Mishle. And we discussed then exactly what that meant, what is different in Musur and Torah, what might be the difference in the role of parenting between mother and father, how both parents have the model behavior. And that was the introduction to the letter. And now, Ymir Tsashem, we will begin a brief share today where we actually start the letter. So if you take a look at your source sheet, we won't do that many sources inside, but I wanted to give you a few of the highlights. And if you look at source number one, this is the opening of the letter. I told you the letter is short, it's not that short. This is not the whole letter. But you have the first, the way, at least in my type setting, you have four lines. You have the opening "possoc," which we already read last week. And then you have three lines, and these are the three lines that we are going to study today. Even in three lines, there's more than enough for a full shear. So says the Ramban, here is where he himself begins his creative process. This is not just quoting a "possoc," but these are the Ramban's own words. He starts off by telling his son and all of us. "Tisnaheig Tamid, the debeir cold de virecha banachas." You should always habituate yourself to speak banachas. I will translate that as softly, speak softly. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And in so doing, you will prevent. You will save yourself from getting angry. Now, even in this one sentence, there is so much to unpack. I think I can identify at least three, four, maybe even five separate points. And we will go back and do all of them. But I just highlight now, some of it on its face needs to be understood, because it seems somewhat inverted. We all understand and all are familiar with both, I assume, sometimes on the giving end or on the receiving end, of the association between people being angry and people raising their voice. But I think we would typically have inverted the relationship. If you're angry, you will raise your voice. But here, he seems to be saying, if you speak softly, you won't get angry. That's not the same way we usually associate it with. It's not the result, but the cause. So we'll have to understand that a little bit. And then he continues to end of the first line. And why is it so important to avoid getting angry? And I added the word important, but it's implicit. If this is the opening statement of the letter, obviously, the Ramban thinks this is very, very important. He's highlighting it, and he's beginning the letter with it. And says the Ramban, in case you had any doubt, how does he describe anger? He mida ra. It is a terrible, evil bad, mida. What makes it so bad? At least in part. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Because when you get angry, that leads to sin. What does he mean? Why is that true? We'll have to understand. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And he adds a supportive proof, a statement of the Gomara. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And where we see that anger is bad and can lead to sin. Because there, the Gomara says something very fascinating. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Those who get angry, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] will control, will reign over such a person. What in the world does that mean? Do we believe in Dante's view of multiple levels of hell? What exactly does this mean? Of course, we're going to have to try to understand that. And then he gives a post which supports this from the 11th chapter, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] And the [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] how these words, excuse me, are obviously talking about anger. But when it talks about getting rid of Ra, it's a reference to Gehenim. And therefore, if you can remove anger from your heart, you will save your body from having the punishment of a purgatory of a Gehenim of a hell. So this is the opening paragraph of the letter. Clearly, the focus is on how we speak, speaking softly, and that that is a way of preventing anger, which is really the first point of the letter. The real first point in there for the topic, the subject of our sheer, is the media of anger. And it would be enough just to highlight the fact that that's how the letter starts, that already in itself is a tremendous statement and underscores how important having self-control is and not losing our tempers in the view of the Ramban. There are a lot of different medos you could talk about. And the one that he chose to speak about first is KAS. So that itself highlights its importance. But as I mentioned, and I hope you were, if we're reading this, I read it slowly. Well, if we're reading it thoughtfully, I think we can go back and unpack even of these three lines, six or seven different points, each of which can be isolated. So let's go back to the top and let's understand what the Ramban is really teaching us on a deeper level. I don't think it'll have to take us too long, but I think it will be very, very worth our time. So the first thing he had said was, called the varecha banachas, that we should always speak softly or gently. Now, I would interpret this, especially in light of the continuation, that what he's really saying, and this is going to get to how the way we talk may impact our anger levels. But I think what he's getting at when he says, to me, is in part even if you're angry. He's not only saying, when everything's great and you're having a warm cup of tea in the afternoon and there's no one else at home and it's quiet, you don't have to tell somebody, or even there's one child home or one friend or just your spouse in a good marriage, you don't have to give me advice to talk softly, right? The answer's no even when it's hard, talk softly. Now, part of the reason I think, I didn't put this on the sheet, but part of the reason is because we all know from human experience, again, both on the giving and receiving end, that if you want your words to be heard, if you want your communication to be effective, it is overwhelmingly more likely to be heard and be effective if you speak softly, right? When people feel that they're being talked to, when they're being yelled at, we are generally either not listening and even if we're listening, we're not gonna do, either 'cause we're in defense mode or to spite the person, right? Yelling is very rarely an effective way of communicating and this was known not only to the Gomara, but the Gomara was really quoting Opossa Shlamamalach, who we've been quoting already a few times, Micheal Aqalas, so Aqalas, he says, (speaking in foreign language) When you speak Banaqas, you are heard. Now, the Gomaraqamam could be a good admonition to rabbis, rabbis should speak softly, shouldn't yell at their students and shouldn't yell at their congregants, but it could also be understood as (speaking in foreign language) if you're smart, you don't need to be a rabbi to be smart. If you're a Hacham, if you're a Hacham, if you're smart, you know that when you talk softly, when you talk, when you see people with respect, even if you have something hard to tell them, when you treat them and you talk to them a certain way, they're more likely to be heard. Now, this is obviously much harder than it's easy to say, it's harder to do, if it was easy to do, you wouldn't need to include this in the Ramban's letter. And I saw in one of the commentaries I was looking at, I mentioned last week that we had the Art Scroll book, and we also have, there's a book by Robert Goldberg, who's the Kurt Rushishiva in Cleveland, and I think it was in his book that he pointed out, then one of the early Mr. Masters, the author of Kelm, suggested that perhaps on an even deeper level, and I'm just throwing this out there to consider, but we're gonna move on, 'cause I wanna stay to the text itself, but he suggested that perhaps the deeper media, which really can help us get to where we need to go, or what's really can allow us to always remain equanimity, and always remain speaking softly, even if we may be otherwise upset, he called it the "Mida of Sadlonus." In other words, letting you have to train yourself, in some people this comes naturally too, but for many of us it doesn't, to allow things to roll off your back. There's how you react, I mean I spent the lifetime trying to tell myself this, but I've spent time also every now and then telling my children. There were different people that I hopefully am close with, and maybe you wanna hear what I have to say. When sometimes they get upset and insulted, and I said not defending that person, or what they did, or what they said, but you decide how to respond. I don't just mean verbally, that's already the second stage. I'm saying internally, you can let it truly hurt you, you can let it cut you to the core, or you can let it roll off your back, because you have self-confidence, because you believe in yourself, because you love yourself, because you know this person has a hard life, and this is just the way they're dealing with their pain, is by taking it out on you, whatever it is, and I'm not saying this is easy, but that ability to let things roll off your back, to have a little bit more equanimity, so if you have that, then it's much easier to always be speaking banachas, right? If you're really all fixed, then it's gonna be much harder to still stay in control and not raise your voice, although we're gonna talk about that also. But if you really, really want it to be preventative, if talking softly, we don't know what the ramban means, we're gonna get to it soon. If talking softly can prevent us from getting angry, well, what will help us always talk softly? So I'm just pushing it back even one further step, which is if we can train ourselves, if we're lucky enough to be blessed with this personality, it's a blessing, but if we're not, you can work on yourself, just 'cause it's hard, doesn't mean you can't do it, just 'cause you weren't born that way, doesn't mean you can't acquire it. Almost, if you always wanted to be six foot and whatever, okay, that, you wanna be able to run this faster, certain things are out of our control, but most things aren't in control. If we work on ourselves, we can really make incremental improvement, if not complete improvement. So this is, I think, the first point that the ramban is making about the importance to speak softly and a way of doing that is to, hopefully, as much as possible, have an inner calm and an inner confidence, and then even when things are said to us or done to us that aren't nice, but we can deal with them in a way that doesn't allow us to then repeat the things that are being done to us by hurting other people and raising our voice. That's number one. Number two, it's just a little phrase, but I think it's worth a few minutes of our time. Said the ramban, "Who do we have to talk to softly?" Cola-dum. Now, what's he emphasizing by cola-dum? So the obvious point is that he means all people, no matter how important or not, they are, right? When you're speaking in front of the president, the mayor, somebody of your boss at work, or whatever, right? So then, you know, there's a certain expectation, you know, you wouldn't dare, you know, raise your voice to so-and-so. But then there are all sorts of other people that either objectively or in our own subject of the social hierarchy we deem as less important. And there, implicitly, we give ourselves license to behave differently with less reverence and less respect. The ramban is teaching us something that we really know intellectually, but he's reminding us that's wrong. If it's wrong to yell at people, if it's wrong to raise our voice, then it doesn't matter who the person is. Cola-dum. So that's, I think, the obvious point. Number two, I would say, Cola-dum also includes, not just who they are in terms of how important they are, but who they are in terms of whether they wronged you or not. It's not about whether they're right or they're wrong. It's about you. Always speak softly, no matter who it is. And last but not least, this is an insight, I think, also, that I got from a Goldberg. If I thought about it long enough, eventually I might have come to this on my own, but I think he deserves credit, 'cause I think I saw this in his safe air. And that is something which I have spoken about in another context. So as I say, I think I might come to it on my own, 'cause I have made this point, but I don't know if I would have thought about it now. And that is something very fascinating about human psychology. There are really two types of people in the sense that, how do we relate to the outside world or strangers versus how to relate to our inner world, literally in the privacy of our home or the people that we're closest with, our loved ones and our family members? And there are all sorts of people for whom, the tranquility, the protection, the bubble of home and love and trust, make me the best person that I am. But when I'm in the street, when I'm in Times Square, when I'm in the office, that's much more challenging. And I'm exposed to things I wouldn't wanna be exposed to. People talk in a certain way, the act in a certain way, and there are certain people who find it harder, right? They could be honest or kind, and when they're around good people in a loving environment, but on the outside, it's harder. They can live a life of, let's say, Kadusha at home, but you put them in the office and you put them wherever, it gets on the street, it gets harder, right? But there are also people who are just the opposite. There are people who, when they're on the outside, their guard is up for, if you wanna be a little bit cynical, they wanna project a certain image. But behind closed doors, you wouldn't recognize them. So they would never do anything in public that's untoward, but who knows how they behave or talk in the house. And I think that's something that also, we can understand from this rambhan. Khaledam, on the one hand, yes, the stranger, I'm just making up, the bus driver, the taxi driver, so maybe they're not, quote unquote, so important, and I don't know them. And for some people, that's a temptation that if something wrong happens, if something tense happens, they might lose their temper. But I think that there's a lot of other people, I don't know what's more or less common, but for sure, there's a whole other group of the population who would never lose their temper in public. It's on becoming, they know it's not right. On the other hand, it's tough among the people that they're closest to, that they somehow assume that they have license to act the way they want to act, in our context, speak the way they want to speak. While they would never raise their voice in public, in private, they can be a holy terror. I know such people. One of the most painful and difficult experiences I had in my early rabbinate, when I was a Baltimore, was, it was a third case, but it was slightly different, but in a short period of time, it was kind of weird the way this happened, two different women came to me in the shul to talk to me about how horrible their marriage was, like really horrific. But what was so sad and strikingly common in both is I knew both of their husbands very well, incredibly giving kind, in one case in particular, unbelievably soft-spoken. I referred to him as a gentle giant, because in all of my public interactions with him. And if you would ask anyone in the neighborhood, they would have said that. Avazela Soter, because evidently it was a Jekyll and Hyde, and with his children, and especially with his wife, it was constant yelling and screaming. It was like two different people. This is not as uncommon as we would like to think. And what the Ramban is telling us is, you have to speak. Venachas lakol adam. Not just to strangers and not just to important people, but to everyone. Dathka, especially the ones who are closest to you, and that we love the most. We can't take that for granted, and that's really, for some people, the biggest nisayam. Not only kol adam said the Ramban, becholeis, and as we've already mentioned. He's talking about not only when it's easy, but even when we're triggered by something annoying and something hurtful. Again, that's obvious we've already made that point. But here, again, I'll make another additional point. And again, I'll once again, I think, give up a global credit for this point as well, which is that there are times in our day or our week which we can predict, because it happens every day or every week, which we know are more stressful than others. And many of us, by choice or not, have already gotten used to or accept it. We've accepted, I'll say it that way. We've accepted the reality that in this type of time, it's okay to raise my voice a little bit. I won't do it the rest of the day. I'm not even so stressed the rest of the day. For some people, it's okay to have little kids. So getting everyone out to school and carpool and all that. So you know there's going to be a lot of screaming in the house, but it's okay the rest of the day, everything's calm. Or I think as Robert Goldberg suggested, that was my idea, but he suggested something which I think is probably, a lot of houses are reality. Arab Shabbos stress. Arab Shabbos stress. The whole day, especially those last few hours, on a short Shabbos, a lot to do. And it's a known thing. It's a known thing that there can be more anger and raise voices. In the time we should be preparing for the holiest day of the week, we can often behave the worst. And going back to our previous point, with the people that we're closest to, who's in the house preparing for Shabbos, right? Husband, wife, kids, your parents, your siblings, your loved ones. And yet stop there where did you do this? I told you to do this. You forgot to do this. You never do this. I'm not completely free from this either, but I'm better than most, not because I am better. But because as a occupational hazard of being a show rabbi, as my whole family knows, I'm basically in the cave all Friday. The cave is my home office, my study. As I'm preparing my shirim and my drushos. So I'm kind of isolated. That also means I don't help as much as I should. But I'm also a little less involved in all the preparations, and therefore I get a little bit less stress. And sometimes when I try to get involved, my wife will say, "Why don't you go back to your office?" She says it nicely, always, of course. Always, nicely, of course. But I'm not any better than anybody else. And yes, the Fridays and our short shabbos and multi-day yunctive, and this brings out stress. Cola dumb, uber-col-ace. Now I want to go back to the two words we started with, because I think this may be the most important. We're about to transition in to spend about ten minutes on anger, fifteen minutes on anger. We'll get to that in a second. But we haven't gotten to the anger part yet. And what's so bad of an anger? We'll get to that shortly. But what were the first two words that Ramban said? We haven't emphasized this enough, either. "Titnaheig tamid." Why does he emphasize that? And I think what he's telling us, again, I'm not going to say any kiddushim, which is important to bring out the obvious points that Ramban felt it's important. We should realize that he's teaching us something. "Titnaheig tamid" is saying all these things that we just said for the last fifteen minutes is the importance of hopefully internalizing them to all people at all times, stressful, not stressful, they hurt us, they didn't hurt us, they triggered us, they didn't trigger us. All that we just spent fifteen minutes talking about? "Titnaheig tamid," that is to say, he's talking about the importance of consistency. You have to make it a habit of talking nicely. You have to make it a habit of being a vatran, of being a sovail, allowing things to roll off your back, to have a personality that deals with things with calm and with equanimity. What's the importance of consistency when making it a habit? Because if you are just kind of in each moment making that split-second decision of how to behave, so then if you're in a stressful situation or you're triggered, I would say it best, depending on your personality, but it best you have a fifty percent chance of doing the right thing or not yelling or not whatever. The way to win the game is way before the game. You win the game in practice, you win the game in the preseason. If you are constantly habituating yourself and consistently speaking quietly, over time that just becomes who you are. And then even in the stressful times, it's not a hundred percent, nothing's foolproof, but then it's not going to be eight, fifty percent. That might be eighty or ninety percent chance, right? In the moment, it is super hard. The best chance you have of rising to the occasion and not allowing all the righteous indignation and anger. Because again, there are times in life where we're oversensitive and we overreact. But there are also times in life where we really have been wronged. Sometimes by the people, it's closest to us. And sometimes in really, really meaningful ways and not just how come so and so didn't take out the garbage when I asked him to. It's always him, right? So in the moment, it's much harder to stay in control. Infinitely smarter, infinitely more likely to succeed is if we've already made this a habit. Again, and I want to tell you, and again, if you've been on the receiving end, you know, when someone is upsetting you and maybe it's the right thing they should share with you what they're upset about, you can make that point softly too. Some of the most painful things I've ever heard were not when someone was yelling at me, but they were so hurt, they almost couldn't raise their voice. So if you, if it's appropriate, and sometimes it is, to tell a person what they did wrong and why they heard it and you were with it. But you can still stay in control. You can avoid yelling at the person. How in the moment, maybe, maybe you arise to the occasion in the moment. But much better than on bond with teaching us is to snot hate tummied. If you make this a habit, you know, there's a book I've quoted numerous times over the last few years ever since I read it. One of the most popular non-fiction books in the world over the last few years is called "Atomic Habits." But some of you, I'm not mistaken, lives in Columbus, Ohio. James Clear, they've sold millions of copies. It's a very smart, well-researched, well-written book about the importance of good habits. Insert habit there, eating right, exercising, whatever speaking, whatever habit you want, but the importance of habits. And I think one of his lines, which I thought was very good, and he was talking about this idea of consistency, even in small steps, which is, let's say exercise. He has a thing, which I could never do, I mean, to get all into the sneakers, into the shorts, into the t-shirt. He says, "Even just the first few weeks, just exercise for five minutes." But once I was ready, like, you know, in my exercise clothes, I couldn't exercise for five minutes, it would drive me nuts. But his point was, in the beginning, it's not about how much you're doing. He says a lot of smart things, and a lot of them I remember, but one of them was, every time you do something, you do a good habit, it's a vote for the kind of person you want to be. You're teaching yourself what kind of person you want to be, whether that's an exercise person, and eating this type of that type of person, or talking nicely, kind of person. So, t-t-t-t-t-mead. Again, most of us don't live lives in which every minute or every day someone's doing something terrible to us. I hope not. You know, most of us can go quite a few days without having something that really, really angers us. But none of us are going to live a life in between the raindrops. We're all going to have bad things happen to us, even with the lowercase B. And people are going to bother us, and upset us, and annoy us. Sometimes real, sometimes silly things. So, each time we could try to win the battle anew, and each time, 50/50, I could do the right thing or not. Good luck with that. It says that I'm not a much better solution, a much better strategy, is that not each time has to be a new battle. Create a habit, create a lifestyle, create a personality, which you're t-t-t-t-mead. And that's why it's every person, every time. Not because everyone always deserves you being so nice to them. But if you can take that approach, then you're changing yourself. I mean, you're changing yourself. You'll have an infinitely better chance of remaining in control and being the kind of person you want to be, and being a more effective communicator with your family, with strangers, with your coworkers, whoever, than otherwise. Okay, now let's spend the last 10-15 minutes of the shear talking about anger. Now, this is a topic which I have a lot to say about. I don't mean I hope that I'm always very angry. I don't think that's what I mean. But, some of you may recall, I think one of the early years of this shear, maybe when we're still at the Platinics, I give an entire shear on this topic. And if Alana was here, she's in the middle of the meeting now, which is why she couldn't come. But if she was here, she would tell you, every few years she hears me out of pay-sock program, speak about anger. It's one of the topics I've lectured a lot about, I've thought a lot about, I've written about. So I have a lot more than 10-15 minutes worth to say on it. But I promise you, I will save you from all that. Just to highlight a few points, especially I think as they relate to the Ramban's letter. So he makes this surprising point that if we do all the things we've been talking about for the last 20-25 minutes and talk softly and create habits of equanimity, that will save us from getting anger. Now, what does that mean? As I pointed out, when we started, usually we think of raising our voice or not as the result of anger, not that it will be the cause of getting angry or not. So the answer is it's not a contradiction. Of course, if we're not angry, why should we be raising our voice? Some of us just have louder voices, but I'm not referring to that. The got needs are born with loud voices usually. But you can speak nicely and loudly too. Sometimes you have to turn down the volume. I've been told this many times in my life you're talking too loud. But the type of loud we're talking about here versus soft is more angry and excited versus equanimity as we mentioned. So yes, of course, it's true that if you get angry, it's very typical to raise your voice. And therefore, in that sense, it's the result. A lot of teachers, there's also a certain, if you will, a cause. And what I think he means to say is when you train yourself not to act in anger, if you're angry on the inside, but if you're talking softly as he's advising us to do, then that will not, first of all, even when you're upset, but when you talk softly, you're much less likely to provoke return fire. When someone gets yelled at, there's fight or flight. Some people will just sulk and they'll be passive aggressive and they won't respond. They'll walk away. But a lot of times, if you yell at someone, they're going to yell back. Which gets you to yell back, which gets them to yell back. And then you have the War of the Roses or World War III or whatever. So even when you are upset, if you share that and you remain speaking softly, you've almost guaranteed that the fire is going to burn out on its own very quickly. You're not going to provoke return fire. And he's not saying this explicitly, but I think this is what he's getting at. And eventually, not only will it not return fire, again, it'll burn out on its own. Eventually it'll dissipate on its own. It's a form of behavioral modification. When you yell, again, even when it was deserved to the person, when you raise your voice, you're giving oxygen to the fire. You're not just expressing your anger, you're fueling your anger. And if you can remain calm, then even if you're provoked, even if you really are angry. But if you starve to the fire, it'll eventually go out on its own. If you don't allow yourself to act on your anger in a demonstrative way, eventually, first of all, almost everything after a little bit of time is not as bad as it originally felt it. Not always, there are some things that are really bad. But most things in our day-to-day life, they're bothering us terribly. If we just slept on it, it still would be not good, but not the nightmare or the disaster we thought at the moment. And even if it didn't change, even if it really is bad. But the point is, we learn to process it and deal with it in other more constructive ways. But the most dangerous moment is the original moment. Because if you rely on yourself, then that fuels your own fire. But also, you're putting gasoline on the fire because now you're most likely to get the person to yell back at you. And it's a mess. So I think that's one point that he's teaching us. The other thing I think he's teaching us with this curious formulation, which is relevant here, but I think it's relevant to a broader topic, which is what he's really telling us is that how we act is more important than how we feel. In today's day and age, I think, especially in Western culture, I think often you get the inverted approach. Everything is about how you feel. And I'm not minimizing that. You know, maybe society and culture are always, you know, going back and forth and correcting mistakes of previous generations. So maybe there were times where people didn't take feelings seriously enough. But the truth of the matter is, at the end of the day, in most -- in most interpersonal things, yes, it's important to be a kind and compassionate person. But it's probably more important to act compassionately. If you constantly feel so, so bad for inserting the population, but you never do anything for them, it's not nothing. It's good that you feel something in your heart, but it's just to help them. I'm not talking about if you don't have the money, but if someone knocks on the door and they tell you a tale of woe, and they ask for your help, it's important to be empathetic. But if you really felt their pain, but just said, "Good luck!" and closed the door, that is not the myth of Sadaka. Or has said, right? Actions, in the end of the day, are what we're going to be judged on. So, even if, I think what they're about is saying, even if you're truly angry, and again, maybe even deservedly so, but if you don't act on it, that's the main thing. Te natsam in akas, again, my first point was, by not fueling the fire, eventually the cost will go out. You can't always control that initial feeling of anger on the inside. So, don't fuel the fire, let it go out on its own, stay calm. Even if you have to share your anger, your feelings. But if you do it in a calm way, you won't provoke their return fire, and your own fire will go out without oxygen. But I think he's also, I get this in my own suggestion, I think he's also alluding to something which is that, Te natsam in akas, not that you didn't get angry, it's not some magic potion. Drink this, you'll never get angry. No, you might get angry. But the anger that's a problem is not too near heart, the anger that's a problem is how you behave when you're angry. And as long as you control that, we can call that Te natsam in akas, not that you weren't angry. But it doesn't matter because you didn't do anything bad because of it. And I think that is a very, very important point. Now, let's spend the last ten minutes on what is so bad about acting angry. Let's leave aside feeling angry because we said that maybe we can't always control and nish kafir lecha, we do feel angry as long as we can stay in control. But what is so bad about acting angry? So the Ramban himself told us, if you go back to the text, he had told us, "This is a mida rah, la hahti benea rah." It causes people to sin. That was the opening line of the Ramban that we saw at the beginning of this year. What does that mean that it's a mida rah that causes people to sin? So at the simplest level, what he's telling us is something which is in the gomaras and in other farshim, the anger, I would call it a gateway mida. You recall, I assume this was true even perhaps in England and other countries, but it was certainly true in America, you know, in the 80s and 90s when they talked, you know, the war on drugs. So let's just say no, that was one big thing. But they often speak about certain things. For example, let's say like marijuana, it's a gateway drug. You start with it, once you get into it, you don't stay there. It leads other things. It's a slippery slope. Anger is a gateway mida. That's what the Ramban is telling you. Because it's not just that anger is bad in and of itself. Once you're angry, you're more likely to speak inappropriately, to hurt people's feelings, to embarrass them, to gossip about them, Rahmanul Islam in rare cases, to use physical violence. But people don't use physical violence for no reason. They were led because they were angry. So anger is not just in its own. Anger is a very slippery slope that leads to a lot of things. And I think clearly on the most basic level, that's what the Ramban is telling us. If you take a look at the second source on your sheet, that's the Gomoram Brachos already said that. It says the Gomoram Brachos, source number two, load to your tachable load tachty. It's beautiful. I always point out that it's fascinating. At the time of the Gomoram, they use the same imagery that we do. As Rahshi says, the Gomoram is telling you don't get angry. But what is the Gomoram's language? Load to tachamis don't get hot. Exactly the way we use those words, right? When you get angry, you're hot under the collar. So the Gomoram was aware of the same imagery. It says the Gomoram, load to your tach. If you don't get angry, load tachty, you won't sin. As Rahshi says, mitocha kas, a tabali dechate. Again, there's plenty of ways to sin without getting angry. Yitzahara has many abilities and talents. But one of the ways we often pile up sin very quickly and even when we weren't planning on it is because we got angry. And then it leads to who knows what. So that is one of the reasons why anger is so bad, because you can never put it in a box. It always spreads and leads to other bad things. That is, I think, a very important point that he is highlighting. But I think it's also true that certainly many sources, and I would imagine the Rambam would agree with these as well, there are many sources that highlight the problem of anger in and of itself. And there's the Gomoram, and if you take a look at source number three, the rambam here paraphrases the Gomoram. It's the Gomoram, except the Shabbos. If you take a look at the second half of the rambam, the rambam says, at the end of the second line, "Kolokos," "Kilo obed oven es kachavim." Getting anger, having an anger management problem, having a temper problem, is a form of a vodizaro, idolatry. Now, what does that mean? Now, before I answer that, just to point out on the line above, the rambam had said something very well known, but very important. One of the most famous ideas of the rambam is the golden mean, moderation, right? Don't be stingy, and don't give away all your money. Give charity and moderation. Don't be a scaredy cat, and don't be somebody who thinks like I walk in the middle of traffic, and nothing's going to happen to them, or walk into raja on your own. No, have a moderate amount, a healthy amount of courage. The rambam gives us many, many examples where you should be in moderation, not either extreme. It says the rambam, there are two exceptions to the rule. And one of the exceptions to the rambam quotes here is anger. There's no amount of anger that's good. The rambam also says that sometimes, let's say if you have children, you want to impress upon them a very important point, so then he says, okay, you can act as if you're angry. Let the children think that you're angry, but in terms of your heart of hearts, there's never a time that it's legitimate to be angry. And so the rambam says, it's extreme, but he says it. You know, extremism, pursuit of ice is not always a bad thing. Even the rambam understood that sometimes it's good to be an extremist, to be an extremist in not being angry, okay? And why? Well, the rambam also tells us in the next breath, because being angry is like worshiping a vodazara, right? We don't think a little bit of a vodazara is a good thing. So why is it so bad? Why is it like a vodazara? So some of our shims say, what it really means is the same idea I mentioned before. It's a slippery slope. Once the Yates rx starts to speak, it's a hold of you, and you're doing all these other things, eventually now you're just in the habit of sinning. A vera, gora, a savera, one thing leads to another, and who knows where it could lead. That's one possibility. And it could be that's what the rambam means. But what I think he might mean, or at least in interpretation, I prefer something that I saw in this Rabbi Goldberg say for, but almost 30 years ago I heard it myself from Rabbi Lamb, and I think Rabbi Lamb may have published it also, but I heard it from Rabbi Lamb. When he pointed out that it's not a coincidence that the other example of the rambam says we have to be an extremist on is ego. Extremely modest and extremely not angry. What's the connection? So he pointed out, and Kumar says that it's a vodozaro. He says because most of the time we get angry, if we're really angry, there's a huge element of ego in it, right? Not just why didn't you listen, but why didn't you listen to me? I'm your husband, I'm your wife, I'm your parent, I'm your boss, I'm your wife who's in the me. How could you do that to me? So there's a huge connection between anger and ego on the most basic level. Instead of Rabbi Lamb, a vodozaro doesn't just mean bound down to a rock or bound down to an idol. The deeper point is that Hashem has to be the center of our lives. Everything that we do, we're a spouse, we're a child, we're a professional, we have a lot of things in our life. And the center of our life is Hashem. Anger, but really ego, which is the core of that, that's not Hashem's in the middle of the circle, you're in the middle of the circle. Everything's about you. That is a form of idolatry. Not the kind that we would take you to the Bezden 4 and Stony 4, don't worry. It's not real a vodozaro, but it's a form of a vodozaro because it's self-worship. Anger stems from self-worship. And if you allow yourself to get angry, it's really a way of saying, "I'm the one that counts, I'm the one in charge." And it's all about whether things were done to me. So I think that these are all different ways of highlighting why we have to be an extremist and try to always be kind, always become, and hopefully never get angry. But there's one other point, and this is how we will end. Rambam also quoted in source number three, based on a Gomara you see in source number four, that Chazal tell us when you get angry, you will lose many hard-earned or even well-deserved things in life. It says the Gomara and Rambam quotes it, "Hacham will lose his or her chakma if they get angry." Anavi will lose their navua if they get angry. And then the Gomara says, "Even someone who has Shem had already pasked in as a word, that they were going to get some tremendous reward, achieve great wealth, or some great position of power stature, it was very decided." "Hacham usually doesn't take back good things." It says, "Rambam, there's one exception." If you get angry, last line of source number four, "I feel a postkin, I love Gedula, Mr. Shemahim, I read it or so." Even if you were already rewarded, some tremendous co-vote, some tremendous wealth, some tremendous gift, you can, you're vulnerable, you're at risk of losing it if you lose your temper, if you get angry. Now this is, again, quite remarkable, and certainly we would say these are all true, "Wow, kas really is a midarah. I'm at risk of being some form of an idolater, I could lose all sorts of good things in my life." There's a lot at stake here if I can't control my temper. Now, it also, again, I didn't put it on the sheet, but in my longest year I always point out that I think connected to this is the fact that Shlomo Malek also, in Cauhelas in Parak Zion, refers to someone who gets angry as a fool. "Kas bheik kesilim, why a fool?" You might say it's immoral, it's not nice to yell at people, to be verbally abusive. That's a terrible thing. God forbid, especially if it's to your spouse or to your children, even worse. But a fool, why a fool? And this is the answer. Because you don't need the gamara to tell you. Again, I'm not denying what the amara says, who am I? God forbid. I don't know what's going on up in Shamayim. I'm going to take away your nahvua, take away your khacham, take away your khacham. But even without the other worlds, just think about your own experiences. Who can remember the last time they got angry, they expressed their anger, they lost control, they yelled, and it made things better? Anyone have any volunteer stories for how it was really good idea I got angry. It was really good I lost control. Of course we don't have an answer, because it's never as that way. It makes, at best, it's part. But mostly, it makes things worse. Right? Just, again, you can recover, especially if you have a relationship of trust and love. So then, eventually, you know, a temper is settled and later that night, or the next day, you can try to talk about things comfortably. But the things that were said in anger were never, they never go away. And it slowly didn't help. Why would a person do things that are actually counterproductive? Why would a person do things that are self-defeating? The answer is only if you're a fool. We all know here, if we think about it when we're calm, that anger doesn't help anything. But we can't think this clearly, we don't say what we want to say, how we want to say it. And we know that even if we say exactly what we want to say, but if we say it in an angry way, the person's not going to listen. So why do we do it? We're not foolish in the sense that we have low IQ. It's because when we allow anger to take hold, the real media, and this is what we'll end with, the real media is a lack of self-control. To be a good person and to be a good Jew, really, maybe the most important thing is discipline. Self-control, right? There's temptations, I want to eat that, I want to look at that, I want to marry who, whatever the things are, I have a lot of temptations in life. If you can't stay in control, you can't be a good person and you can't, you know, you can't be certainly a good Jew, you can't be a good spouse, you can't be a good parent, you can't be a good anything. But not just as a human being, as a religious Jew, it's all about self-discipline. When you are angry, you're out of control, right? We use that expression in English, but it's perfect. We describe someone who's really angry at someone, he or she, he lost his mind. That is a profound way of referring to somebody who got really angry, because you're not in control. I often quote, we won't read it inside, but you've heard me, maybe you've heard this from me. The stypler has the insight on the frogs, right? You know the madderish, one frog came out of the river, and the Egyptians hit it, and it became two, and it came three, and eventually the whole Egypt was covered in frogs. So ask the stypler, why don't they just stop hitting it? See, it says very simple, because in the beginning they thought by hitting it, it would kill it. That's a normal thing to do, you hit a frog, you kill it. But if the frog didn't do what they said, they were going to do. They're supposed to do, I should say. So they got angry, so they hit it again, but harder. And then multiply it again, so they got out angrier. At some point, they could have just had some self-control and been aware, they said, whoa, all we did was stop hitting it, we have a small problem now. But once anger took over, they lost control, and they made their problem worse. If we're being honest, most of us are no smarter than those silly Egyptians. And we often keep on hitting the same thing, using the same verbal or other stick, thinking that we're going to make our problems better, even though we all know we're just making it worse, we're just making more frogs. Now the last thing that Ramban quoted was he said, if you get angry, he's quoting a gomara. Call me the gahanim shulten, but all manners of hell of gahanim will rule over you. What is he talking about? How many types of hell are there? What does that mean, gahanim? So some interpret it to mean, and maybe this is what Ramban means, it's hard to know, that, as we said before, it's a gateway drug, it's a gateway sin. You'll do a lot of sins, that's a lot of gahanim. The capitalist speak about how each sin has its own gahanim. I don't know what that means, enough is true or not. Maybe it's true, then that would work beautifully. But even if it's not true, even if there's just one gahanim. But still, I'm going to have to suffer even more if I do a lot of sins. And if anger is a gateway of aero, it's going to bring a lot of sins to me. But I think a better interpretation is one which I used to say on my own, and then I got very excited because I found it was my idea. And some smarter and better than me said it. If you're a rook of love, it's the source number five. We won't leave it inside. But if you're a rook of love, it says. If you're a rook of love, it says. That what it means, chlamine gahanim, is we think of gahanim hell, something that's the afterlife. And yes, if you are, spend your life angry, you probably hurt other people's feelings, you probably embarrass people, you probably were verbally abusive. On some level, you were Ovid of Otisara. Oh yeah, you better believe it. If you will live your life with an anger management problem, in the afterlife, it's going to be a little toasty toasty for you, a little burn baby burn, a little gahanim there. Yes, for sure. But it says that if you're a rook, chlamine gahanim, in the plural, sholtim is also a language of present, of present tense. Not that one day you'll have to get gahanim, because your life will be a living hell to be an angry person is to be a miserable person. It also makes everyone around you miserable. But forget them for a second. Angry people are the most unhappy people. Chlamine gahanim sholtim vote. Forget God, forget religion, and even forget your people you love the most. Hafto recha kamocha. You love yourself, no? The best thing you can do for your own mental, emotional health and happiness is not have an anger problem. Do recha kamocha lussan komeine gahanim, you won't have to wait until 120. You already can have a gahanim in this world. Physically we know people's stress, their blood pressure, all sorts of things are connected to anger and temper, anger management issues and temper. So it's good for everyone, it's good for the Jews. That's all that matters, right? Especially on a big day like today. What is good for the Jews? Don't ask me, I'm not going to opine. But what's the famous question? We all know what's good for the Jews. You know what's good for the Jews? Not being angry. What's good for our chem? What's good for your relatives? Your loved ones? Your work? Your professionals success? In every area of your life, you know what's good? Staying in control, training yourself, habituating yourself to be calm, talk nicely, softly to people. Even if when you are provoked, stay in control, don't put gasoline on the fire, it's all going to be okay. And even if it's not okay, anger won't help anyway. It's a shame to see you in two weeks.
