Worry and Anger

Continuing on the theme of working on our emotions, we must learn to eliminate worry and anger, from our personalities. Anger, or כעס, has a very detrimental effect on our day to day dealings. The same is true of worry, or דאגה.

What כעס and דאגה have in common is that they are both wasted emotions. Usually, there is no benefit in either one. כעס allows a person to get upset over things one cannot change.

If one makes a foolish mistake, that leads to loss of money or damage to one’s possessions, getting angry will not change anything. It is much more beneficial to take on a גם זו לטובה, that all is for the best, type of attitude.

Worry, according to the ארחות צדיקים, is the opposite of שמחה, happiness. Worry deprived a person from feeling happy, because he always finds something to worry about.

A little bit of anger can be useful when a teacher or parent uses it for disciplinary measures. But one should never get so angry to the point where he loses control of himself.

Worry can be positive if it is limited to spiritual matters. If one is concerned that he is not serving Hashem with enough enthusiasm, or he is not doing enough Mitzvot, this is positive worry. Any worrying that involves the עולם הגשמי, the material world, is pointless.

So perhaps another lesson to be learned from Balak and Bilaam, is that we need to work on כעס and דאגה.