Even though the dominant view of anger in Jewish tradition is that it is a bad character trait that should be avoided, there is one passage from the Talmud that suggests anger can be productive or even necessary in certain circumstances. In his class, “Righteous Anger, Useful Anger,” Rav Micha’el puts this sugya into conversation with modern philosophical takes on anger, especially an article by Amia Srinivasan. What comes out of this comparison is a fascinating and nuanced discussion of what anger is for and whether anger can ever be useful, productive—or even good.
