On Anger

Everyone knows how to be angry. How to scream catch phrases. How to chant blood and fire. How to feel righteous.

Everyone needs to have purpose. To do something for a reason. To matter to somebody else. To turn on the lights.

Everyone is waiting to feel loved. To march shoulder to shoulder. To hold hands. To face the water cannons, together.

When the noise is over, when the anger has subsided, we sit at home. Our phones are off, charging perhaps. We are hungry, although we have already eaten. We light a fire, place it in the window. We wait.

Can you see the flame? It warms but does not burn. Can you feel the fire? Hot but not angry, dangerous but not feared, genuine but not self-righteous, simple, clear, honest, true to what it is.

I am davening to be true to who I am: to be a Jew, to know what that means. I am crying that you will join me. Come out, come out of your hiding. Raise your eyes to the heavens. Ask, who created me, you, this? You don’t need to be angry at Him  for abandoning you. You have never, ever been alone.