fbpx

Emotionally Incoherent at the Bully Pulpit

[additional-authors]
July 14, 2022
golubovy/Getty Images
Emotionally incoherent,
they failed with filial disobedience
by showing less to God, their Parent

than to a Golden Calf allegiance,

behaving bovine in confusion,
looking darkly through a glass,
illuminated by illusion,

turning from epiphany to farce.

Faced by a golden calf that towered
just as a tower had in Babel,
Moses never anger showered,

destroying it, and not the rabble,

emotionally, in the process,
of control of damage in-
tellectually coherent, Moses

prevented harm caused by their sin.

Yet at Meribah, Moses was
not intellectually coherent,
blown by belligerence because

he was emotionally aberrant,

inappropriately angry
with followers whom he would mock
hitting a non-tangere

Meribah microphonic rock.

Abuse of Jews became the cause
of his dismissal, less coherent
than at the Golden Calf, because

to anger he became adherent,

not using as a microphone
the rock, condemned by God as culprit
for, with an unbullish, bearish tone

speaking from his bully pulpit.

Expressing anger thus to Jews
was implicitly forbidden,
In anger spoken, a “J’accuse”

caused Moses by God to be smitten.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in an article called “Anger Management”, suggested that Moses’ fatal flaw was lack of emotional intelligence, which caused him to succumb to anger at Meribah (Num. 20:10-1) where he suffered from the same emotional incoherence that caused the Israelites to worship the Golden Calf. In his article, Rabbi Sacks cites what Maimonides wrote in Shemoneh Perakim, the “Eight Chapters” that form the preface to his commentary to the Mishnah, Tractate Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers:

In the course of these chapters Maimonides sets out a surprisingly contemporary account of Judaism as a training in emotional intelligence. Healthy emotions are essential to a good and happy life, but temperament is not something we choose. Some people just happen to be more patient or calm or generous-spirited or optimistic than others. Emotions were at one stage called the “passions,” a word that comes from the same root as “passive,” implying that they are feelings that happen to us rather than reactions we choose. Despite this, Maimonides believed that with sufficient training it is possible for us to overcome our destructive emotions and reconfigure our affective life.

Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Who’s Really the Victim?

Those who would revel in Israel’s demise are claiming victimhood on every front and denying attacks on us in the same breath.

Biblical Deterrence

After Oct. 7, the sentiment in Israel toward the Iranian leadership was unequivocal: You went medieval — so we will go biblical.

How Sukkot Makes Us Whole

This year, I bless us that we open our eyes to truly see the beauty and the holiness of the world, and of the person before us at each and every moment, and to see the godliness of their aspirations and their fears.

The New Ushpizot

Ushpizin invite us to “welcome in our ancestral constellation and dwell amongst them.” This year, it’s Ushpizot, for the women. It’s the year of the Feminist Visitation.

Macklemore, Or Less

In between his songs, he proclaimed, “Free Palestine,” which is fine, asserted that opposing Israeli military actions is not antisemitic, which is accurate, and accused Israel of apartheid and genocide, which is offensive, untrue and hateful.

The Rokeach’s Remarkable Sukkah

To Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms (1176-1238), the medieval German pietist known as the Rokeach, the sukkah symbolized Jewish military might.

The Sukkah and the Power of Endurance

They can destroy our Temples, demonize us in social media, shower us with hate, but they can’t destroy a spirit that never stops building. That enduring spirit is the power of the sukkah.

NY Mag’s Habibi City

A satirical response to Zaina Arafat’s erasure of Jews in her New York Magazine article “Habibi City,” written as Zaina Arafat.

The ‘Fauda’ Enigma

In many of the nations that believe Israel has no right to exist and routinely root for terrorists to slaughter Jews, a TV show that depicts Israeli covert operatives outsmarting and dispatching Arabs has an inexplicably loyal global audience.

Jewish Democrats Cave to Anti-Semites

Those of us who are not of the Democrat politic party have believed that the Democrats have done little to stop the disease of Jew hatred from infiltrating their party.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.