Remove Anger from Your Heart

by Rabbi Avraham Tubolsky

The Chazon Ish: One of the assumed postulates is that fixing middos relates to mitzvos between man and his fellow man, while the obligation to fear Hashem relates to mitzvos between man and Hashem. From this postulate emerges an idea that some people perform mitzvos between man and Hashem perfectly, but they have deficiencies in their character traits. If you look closely at this idea, it has no basis. In truth, a person whose attributes are the same as when he was born, and didn’t improve them through mussar and knowledge, is in the hands of his yetzer hara; his yetzer hara is not in his hands. It is not possible for such a person to reach perfection in mitzvos between man and Hashem. Even if he does fulfill these mitzvos, it is only because he does not encounter resistance from one of his bad middos. However, were he to encounter resistance from them, his fear would not withstand them, and this happens daily … This shows that such a person is rotten at his core because the yetzer hara rules over him, and whatever mitzvos he performs are done as habits that conform to his desires for honor and pleasure and his way of life …. It is common for there to be a battle about middos that relate to man and his fellow man. It is not common for the yetzer hara to oppose prayer and the like. The person thinks he is halfway serious——a wall inside of himself separates between mitzvos. However, the truth is that he does not have these nor these! (Chazon Ish, Emunah U’Bitachon, 4, 5-7) T...