FEBRUARY 29 • 2024 | 45

from our emotional life: 
pride and anger. 
About anger he says this: 
“Anger is an extremely bad 
attribute, and one should 
distance oneself from it by 
going to the other extreme. 
One should train oneself 
not to get angry, even about 
something to which anger 
might be the appropriate 
response … The ancient 
Sages said, ‘One who yields 
to anger is as if he had 
worshipped idols.’ They 
also said, ‘Whoever yields 
to anger, if he is wise, his 
wisdom deserts him, and if 
he is a prophet, his prophecy 
leaves him.’ And ‘The life 
of an irascible person is 
not a life.’ Therefore, they 
have instructed us to keep 
far from anger, training 
ourselves to stay calm even 
in the face of provocation. 
This is the right way.” 
However he adds an 
important qualification: “If 
one wants to instill reverence 
in his children and family, 
or in public if he is the head 
of the community, and his 
desire is to show them his 
anger so as to bring them 
back to the good, he should 
appear to be angry with 
them so as to reprove them, 
but he must inwardly remain 
calm as if he were acting the 
part of an angry man, but in 
reality he is not angry at all.”
According to Maimonides, 
the emotion of anger is 
always the wrong response. 
We may not be able to help 
feeling it, but we should 
be aware that while it 
lasts, we are in the grip 
of an emotion we cannot 
control. That is what makes 
anger so dangerous. It is, 
to use Daniel Kahneman’s 

terminology, thinking 
fast when we ought to be 
thinking slow.
What then are we to 
do? Maimonides, here and 
elsewhere, adopts a position 
that has been strikingly 
vindicated by neuroscientists’ 
discovery of the plasticity of 
the brain. Intensive training 
over a prolonged period 
rewires our neural circuitry. 
We can develop new patterns 
of response, initially through 
intense self-control, but 
eventually through habit. 
This is particularly hard 
to do in the case of anger, 
which is why we have to 
work so hard to eliminate 
it from our emotional 
repertoire.
But, says Maimonides, there 
is a fundamental difference 
between feeling anger 
and showing it. Sometimes 
it is necessary for a 
parent, teacher or leader 
to demonstrate anger — to 
look angry even if you aren’t. 
It has a shock effect. When 
someone in authority displays 
anger, the person or group 
it is directed against is in 
danger and knows it. It is 
almost like administering 
an electric shock, and it is 
often effective in bringing 
a person or group to order. 
It is, though, a very high-
risk strategy. There is a 
danger it will provoke an 
angry response, making the 
situation worse, not better. It 
is a weapon to be used only 
rarely, but sometimes it is the 
only way.
The key question then 
becomes: Is this a moment 
when anger is called for or 
not? That calls for careful 
judgment. When people 
are dancing around an idol, 

anger is the right response. 
But when there is no water 
and the people are crying 
out in thirst, it is the wrong 
one. Their need is real, even 
if they do not express it in 
the right way.

TIMES TO ‘SHOW’ ANGER
So, to summarize, we should 
never feel anger. But there are 
times when we should show it. 
These are few and far 
between, but they exist. I 
say this because of one of 
my own most life-changing 
experiences.

There was a time when I 
smoked a pipe. It was the 
wrong thing to do, and I 
knew it. There is a mitzvah 
to take care of your health, 
and smoking harms you 
badly in multiple ways. 
Yet there is such a thing as 
addiction, and it can be very 
hard to cure even when you 
are fully aware of how badly 
you are injuring yourself 
and others. For years I tried 
to give it up and repeatedly 
failed. Then someone I 
respected greatly became 
angry with me. It was a cool 
anger, but it felt like a slap in 
the face.
It cured me. The shock 
was so great that I stopped 
and never smoked again. The 
experience of being on the 
receiving end of someone’s 
anger changed my life. It may 
even have saved my life.
This was a difficult 
discovery. When you are a 
leader, you are often at the 
receiving end of people’s 
anger. You learn to live with 
it and not let it depress or 
deflect you. However, when 
someone who clearly cares 
for you gets angry with 
you, not because he or she 

disagrees with you, but 
simply because they see you 
doing yourself harm, it can 
change your life in a way few 
other things can.
You come to see the point 
of Maimonides’ distinction as 
well. Therapeutic anger, if we 
can call it that, is done not out 
of emotion but out of careful, 
deliberate judgment that this 
is what the situation calls for 
right now. The person who 
delivers the shock is not so 
much feeling anger as showing 
it. That is what makes it all the 
more shocking.
There are families and 
cultures where anger is used 
all too often. This is abusive 
and harmful. Anger is bad 
for the person who feels it 
and often for the one who 
receives it. But sometimes 
there are situations that 
demand it, where putting 
up with someone’s bad 
behavior is damaging, and 
where making excuses for 
it can become a form of 
co-dependency. Friends and 
family, intending no more 
than to be tolerant and kind, 
in effect make it easy for the 
person to stay addicted to 
bad habits, at a cost to his 
and others’ happiness.
Maimonides on Moses 
teaches us that we should 
try to conquer our feelings 
of anger. But when we see 
someone or a group acting 
wrongly, we may have to 
show anger even if we don’t 
feel it. People sometimes 
need that shock to help them 
change their lives. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 

served as the chief rabbi of the 

United Hebrew Congregations of the 

Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-

ings have been made available to all 

at rabbisacks.org. 

