Talking about Divine Providence

SM שלום from Jerusalem!

Firstly I want to thank you for the invitation to become a co-poster on this blog. Since this is my first time here I guess this makes this one historic...! [sound of crickets chirping]

Secondly I think it is a great idea for us to approach together this subject of כעס, throw some ideas back and forth, see what we've learned from the sources. Then maybe to share some anecdotes of particular situations that we may be facing, take them apart, and see if we can find the best way to approach them in real life. Sound good?

So I followed through with your advice of getting a copy of ארחות צדיקים (I assume this translates as "Ways of the Righteous" -- correct me if I am wrong), which you suggested we use as our basic text. I can see already that it has chapters on many different kinds of middot, including that of anger. Shall we start there, or at the beginning?

I must admit to you that I have not done much study in mussar -- in yeshivah because of a scheduling conflict, and outside of yeshivah because of some misapprehensions I had about the subject. Call it prejudice (i.e. making a judgement without the evidence), or just having seen bad examples, but I used to think that mussar was basically a rabbi shaking his finger and saying "nu nu nu"! Tales abound, unfortunately... But gratefully, thanks to HaShem's patient work on me, I have begun to change my outlook on the subject, and am looking forward to discovering it using the classic texts.

I also followed through on your advice of reading previous postings to this blog which deal with the subject of anger and what a corrupting force it is:
Why Getting Angry is Compared to Worshipping Idols from the holy Zohar and Whoever is in a rage resembles an idolater from the Tanya: Igeret HaKodesh. This last piece of Ḥassidic writing goes deeply into the moment that a person becomes angry and describes his choice to do so vis-à-vis of hashgaḥah pratit. Well, I must admit that that one needs some further study, but I wanted to share with you my own small occurence of Divine Providence this very evening!

Believe it or not I found a connexion between anger and parnassah (livelihood), I think.

Between my home and that of my in-laws we have a few books that prescribe various סגולות, segulot, for particular situations. One of these books, תפילה למשה (based on the work of Rav Mordekhai Shar`abi ע''ה) has the following segulot for parnassah:

.א. סגולה לפרנסה לקיים בכל מוצאי שבת סעודת מלוה מלכה

ב. סגולה נוספת לומר בכל יום י''ג עיקרים, וגם לקרוא את אגרת הרמב''ן.

(vol. 2, p.202). The natural question is, what does eating the fourth meal of Shabbat (on Motsaie Shabbat), and reading the Thirteen Principles of the Rambam, and the Letter of the Ramban, every day, have to do with livelihood? I decided to check the אגרת הרמב''ן this evening and was pleasantly surprised to find the opening paragraph:

Hear, my son, the instruction (mussar) of your father and don't forsake the teaching (Torah) of your mother [Mishlei 1:8]. Get into the habit of always speaking calmly to everyone. This will prevent you from anger, a serious character flaw which causes people to sin. As our Rabbanim said [Nedarim 22a]: Whoever flares up in anger is subject to the discipline of Gehinnom as it is says in [Koheleth 12:10], "Cast out anger from your heart, and remove evil from your flesh." "Evil" here means Gehinnom, as we read [Mishlei 16:4]: "...and the wicked are destined for the day of evil." Once you have distanced yourself from anger, the quality of humility will enter your heart. This radiant quality is the finest of all admirable traits, [Mishlei 22:4], "Following humility comes the fear of HaShem."

Hmmm, anger is as the opposite of humility. And perhaps we can deduce that humility is helpful to parnassah, whereas anger is destructive? This is certainly worth examining!