Internal Imbalance

I love it when Psych and Megillot collide. This past week in Psych, we learned all about emotions. This past week in Megillot, we learned פרק ב׳ of Eicha, in which G-d is portrayed as the excessively angry enemy of ירושלים. The descriptions of the manifestations of G-d's anger against the leadership of בני ישראל are so vivid that there's no denying that G-d was fed up with ירושלים. Of course, she doesn't realize this yet.

While I totally understand that there are some things that humans can't know or understand, there are definitely take-home lessons that can be learned from such incredibly extreme situations and emotions. Just for this moment, imagine that G-d is a person sitting in his psychiatrist's office (Lehavdil). The psychiatrist is the Dalai Lama. G-d tells the Dalai Lama that he gave בני ישראל so many chances to repent and they threw away all of their chances. After they threw away their final chance, G-d had so much anger bottled up inside that he had to let it out. For those in psychology, this is an example of the catharsis hypothesis. As we learned in psychology, studies have shown that letting off steam by acting aggressively actually makes your anger worse. In my own attempt to lower G-d's actions onto a level that I can understand, I imagine that G-d's anger was released in a way somewhat similar to what the catharsis hypothesis describes: letting out a little anger will lead to more and more aggression. As G-d is G-d, He was able to stop the active aggression in time. Now that he's sitting in Dr. Dalai Lama's office, and he's explaining his situation, Dr. Dalai Lama has a response.

According to Dr. Dalai Lama, anger is a form of energy that causes an internal energy imbalance and can block our view of reality. In order to face the problem, our method of solving it should be realistic. Our minds should be calm and we should look at the situation objectively. G-d would then say, "Okay, Doctor. Thanks for your help. I think I can calm down now." The end.

Now replace G-d in the psychiatrist's office with ירושלים. In the perek, G-d is portrayed as the most angry one, but the city herself seems pretty darn angry at G-d. If I were Dr. Dalai Lama, I would give her the same advice. This is the take-away lesson: don't let anger get the better of you so that you can calmly solve the problem. No souls leaving bodies necessary. Imagine what a better place the world would be if people followed this philosophy.