by Rabbi Bluth | Dec 20, 2021 | Content by Bluth, Podcast

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“Anger can be illogical and it can cause a lot of harm. But it also can be righteous and it can be rectifying something that’s wrong.”— Ganga Devi

What is the role of anger in our lives? And what can we learn from our sense of it?

This episode of Living Jewishly is an instalment of Sacred Time, a podcast devoted to the healing art of the Hebrew calendar.

As we bid goodbye to Chanukah, we enter Tevet, the tenth month of the calendar. This is a time of cold and darkness, but one that evokes a fiery emotion. Its 10th day commemorates the onset of the siege of Jerusalem — no wonder Tevet is associated with the sense of anger.

Tevet is also connected to the story of Purim, as it is in the month of Tevet that Esther was taken to the King Achashverosh’s palace to be chosen as Queen.

Most of us are only aware of anger when we feel it or when it’s directed toward us, and in these heightened states we are unable to reflect on and understand the wisdom and potential carried within it.

Tevet offers us the rare opportunity to examine anger from a place of peace.

Through drawing on Kabbalistic themes and psychological tools, we can work intentionally with anger and see it with new eyes. This episode explores anger’s purpose — how it can point us to unmet needs and fuel us to make necessary changes in our lives, relationships and social systems.

“That is what Tevet gives us to work with. It’s understanding: what is anger? What does it mean to play with the fire of anger?”— Bluth

This‌ ‌episode discusses:‌ ‌

How anger can be used as a tool to create positive and necessary change
Comparisons between ecological fire and the fire of anger, and how each plays a role in stripping away what no longer serves
How to differentiate between the needs and the strategies connected with our anger

Highlights:‌ ‌

01:30 Welcome to Tevet

02:58 Purim & The Book of Esther

03:53 Chanukah & Purim

06:39 Tevet & anger

08:04 Comparison between anger & fire

10:46 Emotions as data points

12:10 Regenerative anger & trauma

15:13 Empathic communication & reframing

19:58 Our needs v. our strategies

24:45 The Language of Emotions

26:51 Ganga Devi’s story