Seeing Red
My Anger Jacket There's a story about the rabbi who controlled his emotions by donning an anger jacket . I heard about it a week after a run-in with a sociopath. I wish I'd known about the anger jacket sooner. Rabbi Shalom Rosner tells us about it in a weekly 'parsha' podcast. (The 'parsha' is what Jews read at services on Saturday morning). By the time I heard the story my trauma, a game of chicken on a side-street, had dissipated. The encounter didn't bother me anymore. The rabbi tells the story of the prophet Moshe getting angry at the Jewish people. He's able to wait before he speaks, able to calm himself down before criticizing them.* Think before you speak. Be grounded. The rabbi then gets to our intervention, repeating a yarn about a revered sage who worked hard not to express his rage (not to his children, spouse, students, etc.) without first putting on a special jacket that hung hidden away in his bedroom closet. After taking the trouble to
