As we continue to enjoy the wisdom of Pirkei Avos through the spring and the summer, we experience an exercise of mining the pearls and diamonds from the familiar words of these mishnayos. Here’s an example of something that I’ve read scores of times but didn’t pick up a subtle nuance until this week.
Reb Eliezer ben Horkanos, one of the greatest disciples of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, teaches, “Al t’hi noach lichos – Let it not be easy for you to get angry.” When we hear it, it’s a well-known lesson about the ugliness of anger. However, let’s now stop and listen carefully to what he’s telling us. “It shouldn’t be easy to get angry.” Is this the way we would’ve said it? It’s like telling your wife, “Don’t be too easy to use the credit card,” which implies, “You could use it. It just shouldn’t be too easy.”
Is that the attitude towards anger? Wouldn’t it be better to say simply, “Al tichos – Don’t get angry!”? For after all, the Gemara says, “Kol hako’eis kol minei gehenim sholtin bo – Anyone who gets angry – all the treatments of hell will be needed to cure him.” It dawned on me that Reb Eliezer is trying to make an adjustment in our attitude to anger. This is perhaps similar to why it’s not easy for a person when asked to become a “Guest of Honor,” because he knows that they will try to get money from other people using his name, and he will then feel beholden to respond in kind when other people are honored.
This is what Reb Eliezer is trying to inculcate in us. It shouldn’t be easy for us to get angry because we know all the reprehensible repercussions. For example, it says, “Ka’as becheit k’sil yanu’ach – Anger rests in the bosom of the fool.” Thus, when we get angry, we look foolish in the eyes of people. It also says that when we get angry, we become temporarily senseless, so much so that the Gemara advises, “Ein m’ratzin l’adom b’shas ka’aso – Don’t try to appease a person when he’s angry.”
As Reb Irving Bunim, zt”l, zy”a, expresses so eloquently, “When a person gets angry, their brain goes into park.” Even if he tries to use his thoughts (by stepping on the gas), the brain doesn’t budge. Who wants to be in such a state? The Gemara also says in Pesachim, “Kol hako’eis im chacham hu, chachmaso mistalekes mimenu – Any person who is wise, if he gets angry, his wisdom deserts him.”
I believe this is one of the reasons why Reb Eliezer is the author of this teaching. His great rebbe, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, praised Rebbi Eliezer as “Bor sid, she’eino m’abeid tipa – His wisdom was so intact as if it was in a lime coated cistern that doesn’t lose a drop.” It now fits beautifully: Reb Eliezer never lost any of his wisdom because he never got angry.
The famous Igeres HaRamban quotes the verse, “Haser ka’as milibecha, v’ha’aver ra’ah mibsorecha – Remove anger from your heart and that will remove evil from your flesh.” Rav Avigdor Miller, zt”l, zy”a, explains this literally. He says anger is responsible for many maladies of the flesh such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. He teaches that the word ka’as (spelled chaf-ayin-samach) is an anagram for the word eches (spelled ayin-chaf-samach), which is a rare word that means poison, the venom of a serpent, thus revealing that anger too is a deadly poison.
The Zohar, however, clues us in about another frightening thing that happens when a person loses themself and gets into a rage. The Zohar cites the verse, “Toreif nafsho b’apo – He tears his soul in his anger,” and in Parshas Tetzaveh the Zohar elaborates, “Rav Abba amar, ‘Torif v’akar nafshei b’gin rugzei v’ashrei b’gavei eil zar’ – ‘His soul is snatched and uprooted from him because of his anger and is replaced by an evil foreign entity.’” It further says that this is alluded to in the Biblical warning, “Lo yihiya b’cha eil zar – There shouldn’t be in you a foreign control.” How frightening! When a person gets angry, the neshama, which is Heavenly and a sliver of G-d, can’t take it and packs out. The body is maintained instead by an evil force. This is why we are taught that we shouldn’t look at a person when they are angry.
This fits in with what it says in Yeshaya, “Chadlu lachem min ha’adom asher neshama b’apo, ki bameh nechshav hu – Cease from a person who has anger flaring in him for what is he worth.” What a horrifying thought! When we get angry, we turn over the controls of our body to a sitra achra, a foreign evil influence.
To sum it up, if we don’t want Gehennom, if we want to avoid looking like a fool, if we don’t want to lose our wisdom, if we don’t want to render ourselves senseless, and if we don’t want to give ourselves over to an evil controller, we need to train ourselves that it shouldn’t be easy for us to get angry.
The Chafetz Chaim, zt”l, zy”a, used to say that a segula to deter anger is to hold on to one’s tzitzis. Rav Shteinman, zt”l, zy”a, says he has a better segula. If you feel you’re getting angry, keep your mouth shut. There were Ba’alei Mussar who had an “anger hat” hidden somewhere in a closet, and if they felt they were getting angry, they would have to put on that hat. This pause button gave them time to compose themselves and regain their senses.
(I’d like to share with my dear readers that my wife, Mrs. Shoshy Weiss, LCSW-R, is, b’ezras Hashem, giving a six-week zoom course starting July 7, 2026, on “IFS for Women.” You are invited to listen to a pre-recorded message explaining the course at 732.661.8280. To register or find out more, call or text 845.270.3699 or check out her website at shoshyweissifstherapist.com.)
In the merit of our working on anger management, may Hashem bless us with long life, good health, and everything wonderful.
Transcribed and edited by Shelley Zeitlin.