I try, in these essays, to write from where my heart and mind actually are and not from where I wish they were. So the Rav Hutner and Amia Srinivasan piece about Adar joy is waiting for Adar Bet (and I think it will be really interesting, too) . Because this month all I’ve got for you is anger.
There are a lot of factors making me angry right now. They range from the giant (children are being killed and held captive and I am worrying about jobs?!) to the smallish (someone didn’t use my title when they really should have), but most of them are somewhere in the middle: sexist and homophobic conversations about sexual violence, construction in my apartment that has me on edge, the aforementioned job search. It’s all built up to leave me simmering, looking for an outlet.
I told a friend today that I’m in the kind of state where if I was a teenager, I’d pick a fight with my parents just because I needed to yell. But the people who I could yell at without big consequences are the ones I don’t want to hurt, and the people who really deserve it either aren’t accessible to me or would make my life actively worse if I tried. (How many listserv fights have I talked myself out of this week? Too many.)
I needed a Rosh Chodesh hook for this essay, because it’s a Rosh Chodesh dvar torah. So I went looking: I read through Hallel, I looked at Musaf, I thought maybe there was something about leap years that could be interesting.
In the end, though, I found myself back where I always do: with the Israelite women who refused to contribute to the Golden Calf, and who rabbinic tradition teaches were rewarded with Rosh Chodesh (see, for example, the dvar Torah I wrote for literally last Rosh Chodesh). This time, though, I was thinking about how they felt when they told the men making demands of them that no, they would not comply.
Last night, sitting awake thinking about all the things that had my chest tight with anger, I felt so resistant to the idea that I should try to calm down. Anger lives in the same place as my body that anxiety does: just below my collarbone, tight and loud. (Yes, I’m in therapy, can you tell?) And so I found myself turning to the strategies that help when I am anxious: deep box breathing, focusing on the smell and temperature of a cup of peppermint tea, more breathing. But I found that unlike anxiety, I didn’t feel good about trying to get the anger out of my body.
In my desire to lean into rather than away from my anger, I remembered a piece of Torah from my dear friend Rabbi Atara Cohen. Atara, exploring the feminist reclamation of anger through a Jewish textual lens, writes:
An early Talmudic source encourages people to act as God acts. A Rabbinic figure states: “Just as God is kind and merciful, so too you should be kind and merciful.”However, these texts recommend only some of God’s attributes. One of the most striking omissions is God’s anger, yet one well-known characteristic of God in the Hebrew Bible is that God becomes angry! In one colorful verse, God declares: “For a fire has flared in My wrath And burned to the bottom of Sheol, Has consumed the earth and its increase, Eaten down to the base of the hills.” The Talmud shies away from teaching to emulate this aspect of God. However, I argue that God’s anger can give permission, or even encouragement, to embrace anger on a human level. I am not suggesting that we hold grudges or lash out at others. I believe that these ancient texts show that there are ways of embracing anger that can be productive, even in anger’s destructiveness.
I reread her dvar Torah and then wrote a list of the things making me angry. It didn’t make me feel better, and it didn’t need to.
The Torah does not tell us how the women who refused the Golden Calf felt, but we do get another vivid description of emotions: those of Hashem. Hashem tells Moshe, “ הַנִּיחָה לִּי וְיִחַר־אַפִּי בָהֶם,” “let Me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them.” (Shemot 32:10) Moshe convinces God to not let that anger lead to the destruction of the Israelites, famously begging Her to “שׁוּב מֵחֲרוֹן אַפֶּךָ וְהִנָּחֵם עַל־הָרָעָה לְעַמֶּךָ,” “Turn from Your blazing anger, and renounce the plan to punish Your people.” (Shemot 32:12.)
God concedes to Moshe that She will not annihilate Am Yisrael: וַיִּנָּחֶם ה עַל־הָרָעָה אֲשֶׁר “דִּבֶּר לַעֲשׂוֹת לְעַמּוֹ׃, “And Hashem renounced the punishment planned for God’s people.” (Shemot 32:14.) God renounces the punishment, but Moshe has asked for a rejection of anger as well. God does not grant this. God does not stop being angry.
The women who refused the sin of the calf are often portrayed as holy and pious, attributes we might associate with calm and gentleness. But God was angry. The Israelite women, our ancestors, were imitating God. Perhaps when men approached them to seize their jewelry, they yelled and raged. Perhaps they said “what the FUCK do you think you’re doing?” and God nodded approvingly.
Rosh Chodesh as a “women’s holiday,” can be a day when we imitate God with our anger rather than with a quiet piety. The whole thing, after all, is about a refusal to acquiesce to what is wrong. I will let my chest stay tight and save the deep breaths for another day. I will say no to someone, and I will not soften it. This is holy, too.
Kol hakavod! Thank you for your wisdom and insight and refreshing approach. I feel a personal connection to Rosh Chodesh, having become a Bat Mitzvah on Rosh Chodesh, so your dvar is especially meaningful. At the time I did research and a dvar relating to the texts, the halakhah and traditions, up to contemporary women's practises around Rosh Chodesh. (And you were there!)