You shall not hate your brother in your heart. (19:17)
Then the Torah continues: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. To explain the connection of both Psukim: the Mussar seforim bring that anger brings to hatred. The reality is that when someone is angry, he is irrational and loses his senses. Hence, Chazal equate the person he gets angry, as being an idol worshipper, for he forgets then from Hashem, and does things which are not appropriate for a Yid! Therefore, it is for the benefit of a person to refrain from getting angry. Yet one may think that keeping the animosity and anger inside and not showing the anger is fine.
The Torah connects the Posuk you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The anger inside would lead to hating your brother, and for this you are going against the Torah and doing a few Aveiros. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. This also is the outcome of anger in the heart.
Judge your kin fairly. Rashi explains, Judge your fellow man with an inclination in his favour (Avos 4:4). This is the solution to refrain from hatred towards another Yid, and liking him.
The reason for animosity is that the person did something wrong or meant to harm you, and this causes ill feelings. But, when you judge the other person with the right inclination and you love him as you love yourself, you would realize that there were no wrong intentions, and all anger would be gone. Hence the psukim here are all connected with the objective of Love a Yid and refraining from any traces of anger. Therefore, Shlomo Hamelech states in Koheles 11:10:
and banish care from your mind, and pluck sorrow out of your flesh!
The word Yetzer Hara according to the Chidah. He says that the Yetzer Harah toils hard to bring a person to anger, since this causes to disconnect the person from Hashem. There is another meaning of Gehinum. As the Gemarra says Nedarim 22a Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmani said that Rabbi Yonasan said: Anyone who gets angry, all kinds of Gehinum rule over him, because anger causes him to transgress all kinds of severe sins, as it is stated: “Therefore remove vexation from your heart and put away evil from your flesh” (Koheles 11:10), and the evil mentioned is nothing other than Gehinum, as it is stated: “Hashem has made everything for His own purpose and even the wicked for the day of evil” (Mishlei 16:4), which is interpreted to mean that ultimately the day of the evildoer in Gehinum will arrive. Hence, it is very important to work on this Middah. The saying of the Igeres Haramban everyday, is a tremendous segulah for refraining from anger, and becoming a tranquil person.
The heilige Tzemach Tzedek zt”l of Lubavitch was especially vigilant never to become angry, even the mildest inner anger. Whenever he felt himself about to give vent to anger, he would ask his talmidim to give him a Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah. The chassidim wondered – what did a Yoreh Deah have to do with preventing anger? The Rebbe explained to them: Our Sages say that whoever gives in to anger is said to be worshiping idols.
We see from this that anger is a serious matter, no less so than matters of issur (the prohibited) and hetter (the permitted). If so, how can a person allow himself to get angry without first inquiring whether it is permissible, without examining the halachic authorities on the matter? That is why I seek an answer in the Yoreh Deah.” Then the Rebbe would turn to the Yoreh Deah to investigate the halacha– and also by that time his anger would have passed.
The middah of controlling anger is so important to the attaining any level of Divine providence, as well as being a normal person. The Balei Musser bring a segulah similar to the above. When something occurs that can trigger an anger feeling, to first count to ten, and take a deep breath, and the anger will subside. This coincides with the counting to ten as stated earlier.
(Yehuda Z. Klitnick)
