There burns in the marrow of Jewish tradition a fire we have too long silenced. It is not polite, not measured, not diplomatic. It is the fire of the prophets—raw, relentless, righteous. It does not whisper reforms from behind a lectern; it roars from the wilderness, demanding justice where civility has failed. In an age that canonizes calm and mistrusts fury, we must ask: what if the moral voice we need today is not one of soothing consensus—but sacred rage?
Modern Jewish life, particularly in liberal circles, is governed by a theological temperament that mistakes emotional restraint for virtue. We are trained to favor balance over boldness, empathy over outrage, nuance over moral clarity. The result is a community deeply suspicious of anger—especially our own. To be “a light unto the nations” has come to mean being gentle, gracious, and above all, agreeable. But the Torah tells a more combustible story.
Anger, in the Jewish tradition, is neither alien nor inherently sinful. It is, in fact, divine. God’s wrath is a recurring theological motif, not as a tantrum of omnipotence, but as covenantal grief: a holy, visceral response to betrayal, idolatry, exploitation. The prophets do not recoil from this fury—they emulate it. Amos condemns those who “sell the righteous for silver.” Isaiah denounces those who “call evil good and good evil.” Jeremiah, whose lamentations are soaked in anguish, confesses: “There is a fire in my bones… I grow weary of holding it in.” Prophetic anger is not policy critique. It is divine protest. It is holiness incinerating hypocrisy.
Since October 7, many Jews have rediscovered this fire—not as ideology, but as instinct. The anguish that erupted in response to massacre, torture, rape, and arson was not a political reaction. It was primal. And yet, in the days that followed, as the corpses were still being identified, we were instructed to temper our mourning, to balance our outrage, to contextualize our dead. The global discourse turned with dizzying speed—not to what had been done to Jews, but to what Jews must now apologize for. Civility was demanded not from the murderers, but from the survivors.
We were told to measure our grief against an invisible moral yardstick—to prove that our heartbreak did not impair our objectivity. To mourn in moderation. To speak our pain only if it came with disclaimers. And when we refused, when we cried out in horror and fury, many recoiled—not at the violence done to us, but at our refusal to suffer it quietly. Our anger, we were told, was unbecoming.
But there is nothing immoral about Jewish rage in this moment. What would be immoral is its absence.
Not all anger is holy. The Talmud warns that one who lives in anger is as if he worships idols. Rage can distort. It can corrode. But that is not the fire we speak of here. The rabbis distinguish between cheshbon and chaos, between moral protest and personal indulgence. Sacred anger is not egoistic. It is covenantal. It does not consume indiscriminately; it illuminates injustice with unbearable clarity. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel—gentle in speech, volcanic in spirit—reminded us that “anger is not always a sin. It is sometimes the voice of God.” When he marched with Dr. King, his steps became a liturgy of fury. His anger was not hate. It was fidelity—to the God who demands justice, and to a people too long scorned by history.
And now, our fury is not limited to the outside world. It is also inward. It is the heartbreak of betrayal from within. It is the anguish of watching Jewish institutions hesitate, equivocate, dilute. It is the disillusionment with rabbis who eulogize Jewish victims while apologizing for Jewish survival. It is the fury directed at a generation of educators who taught our children to be universalists first and Jews second—and are now stunned to see them chant in the streets for the erasure of the Jewish state.
This, too, is a form of love. The pain of betrayal presupposes covenant. We rage at those we believe are still ours. This is not abandonment. It is a desperate demand for accountability. The fire that consumes also purifies. And when directed inward, it can refine our communal soul. But we must not mistake critique for contempt. To be angry at our people is not to reject them—it is to believe they are still capable of greatness.
Judaism does not fear dissent. Our foundational texts are arguments—with God, with kings, with ourselves. Abraham argues for Sodom. Moses defies divine wrath. The prophets do not flatter their people—they confront them. This is not disloyalty. It is fidelity in its fiercest form. The covenant was never built on silence—it was forged in the furnace of holy dispute.
But sacred anger must not become a theology of grievance. It cannot rest in indignation alone. Anger, if it is to be holy, must summon us to responsibility. Rage that remains self-referential calcifies into bitterness. But rage that is transfigured into resolve becomes a force for renewal. The question is not whether we are right to be angry. We are. The question is what we will build with our fire.
We must resolve to defend Jewish life without apology. To raise children who know our history not just as trauma, but as triumph. To restore a Judaism of strength, solidarity, and substance. A Judaism that is not only ethical but ancestral—not only inclusive but indomitable. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik taught that Jewish existence is defined by two covenants: Sinai, of law and purpose, and Egypt, of shared fate. October 7 reminded us that the covenant of fate is not a metaphor. It is a reality. The world still sees us as one people. Will we?
Our anger must become covenantal action. Not performative grief. Not impotent complaint. But a restoration of dignity, clarity, and faith. A Judaism that burns not from trauma, but from mission.
Let your anger become liturgy. Let it rise like incense. Let it speak what your heart can no longer suppress. Let it remind you of who you are, and what you will never again allow this world to do to us.
There is a fire in the bones of this people.
Let it speak.