Nisan-Fighting the Fire of Anger VIII

The Kobriner Rebbe related that in his boyhood a year of famine had occurred, and the poor wandered from village to village to beg food from the Jewish residents. A number of them came to his mother’s home, and she prepared the oven to bake for them. Some of the beggars, growing impatient, began to abuse her with their words, and the distressed woman began to weep. Her small son, the future Rebbe, said to his mother:

“Why should you be troubled by their abuse? Does not this help you to aid them with a pure heart, and to perform a good deed imperfection of spirit? On the other hand, had the poor crazed and blessed you, the good deed would be less praiseworthy, since you might have performed it to gain their praises, and not entirely in obedience to God’s command and for the sake of His service.” (Ohr Yesharim, page 50)

iPray-iAttach-Amidah-Closing Meditation: “To those who curse me, let my soul be silent; and let my soul be like dust to everyone. Open my heart to Your Torah, then my soul will pursue Your commandments. As for all those who oppose and who design evil against me, speedily nullifies their counsel and disrupt their design. May it be Your will, God, my Lord and the Lord of my ancestors, that human jealousy may not rise up against me, nor my jealousy upon others; may I not become angry today, and may I not anger You.” We then ask God to, “Act for Your Name’s sake; act for You’re right hand’s sake; act for Your Torah’s sake; act for Your sanctity’s sake.” When we master our response to insult, and, as the young Kobriner said to his mother, learn to act only for God’s sake, we can then ask God to grant our requests for His sake.

Haggadah: “Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You and upon the kingdoms that do not called out in Your Name. For they have devoured Jacob and desolated God’s abode. Pour out Your rage upon them and let Your fury overtake them. Pursue them in anger and annihilate them from under the heavens of the Infinite God (Psalms 79:6–7, 69:25, Lamentations 3:66).” We are asking God to crush our enemies as His enemies; for the sake of His name. To merit this, we must learn to act ourselves for the sake of His Name, and by mastering our responses to insult.