There is a line.
A line between passion and anger. Between urgency and aggression. Between pushing someone to be better—and pushing them away. And if we’re being honest, it’s not always obvious when we’ve crossed it. You can be self-aware, emotionally intelligent, and deeply well-intentioned—and still miss the off-ramp.
That’s the danger of passion. It’s hot. It burns. It refuses to sit quietly. We tell ourselves it comes from love, conviction, or moral clarity—and often it does—but even holy fire can singe the very people we’re trying to warm.
And yet, I struggle with the alternative.
Because in leadership—whether spiritual, professional, or parental—there’s another danger: apathy. The person who “cares,” but isn’t invested. The words are correct, the tone is even, the demeanor is polished. But the heart is somewhere else. Detached. Measured. Safe. They offer feedback, but without risk. Without ownership. Without the trembling vulnerability that comes from actually needing things to be different.
That’s not leadership. That’s performance.
When you listen to stirring oratory—a great sermon, an unforgettable TED Talk, a moment that lives in your bones—do you think it emerged from neutrality? From a calculated detachment? Or was it born of a fire inside someone who could not not speak?
I would rather be burned by someone who cares too much than lulled by someone who doesn’t care enough. I’d rather sit in a lecture or a sermon and feel provoked, even furious—so long as I know the speaker believes in what they’re saying. Let them be wrong, let them be raw—but let them be real.
And still: the line is real. And it matters.
We’ve all seen it happen. A passionate plea becomes a personal attack. A drive for excellence curdles into control. We start by fighting for something—and end up fighting someone. It happens in marriages. In congregations. In movements. It happens in the mirror. And it often begins in the same place: a deep, aching desire for things to be better.
So how do we know when we’ve crossed the line? And perhaps more important: how do we make it clear—to ourselves and to others—that we’re still on the side of passion, not anger?
One answer is intention.
Anger wants to be right. Passion wants to make things right. Anger seeks to dominate; passion seeks to elevate. Anger says, “Why aren’t you better?” Passion says, “I believe you can be.”
But intention alone is not enough.
Even noble intentions can harm. Even sacred passion can sound like rage when trust is thin. Sometimes it’s not about what’s in your heart—it’s about what your words do in the world.
I worry about a culture that has grown too allergic to passion. A world that pathologizes intensity. That confuses emotional investment with instability. That tells its leaders, its prophets, its emotionally alive people: Don’t be too much. Don’t want too deeply. Don’t speak too loudly. You might upset someone.
But without passion, would we have Moses? Or Hannah? Or Jeremiah?
If we stripped Moses of his fury, would we still call him a liberator—or just a problematic man with a temper? If we muted Hannah’s brokenhearted cry, would we hear a prophet—or just an unstable woman making a scene? If we sanitized Jeremiah’s anguished laments, would we revere his words—or dismiss him as dramatic and unbalanced?
And what of more recent prophets?
Would we recognize Abraham Joshua Heschel—marching in Selma, feet praying, eyes ablaze—not through the sepia filter of history, but with the cool detachment of our time? Would we see a holy man of fire—or an angry rabbi who made people uncomfortable?
If we watched a parent raise their voice at a school board meeting to advocate for their child, would we say: What courage—or would we whisper: That’s a bit much?
The line between caring and pushing—and pushing too hard—is not a straight one. It’s jagged. Contextual. Negotiated in real time. And it’s not just about how we treat others—it’s also about how we treat ourselves.
There are days I feel the fire rising in me. Wanting more from my community. From the world. From my own heart. Days when the apathy around us feels crushing. We get up. Drop off the kids. Go to work. Come home. Scroll. Shrug. Sleep. Repeat.
And yet that quiet voice inside—that whisper that says, this isn’t enough—that is not a flaw. That is a gift. That is the spark of the Divine. It is a gift to be alive. It is the refusal to go numb. It is the still, small voice that won’t be silenced—not because it hates what is, but because it still believes in what could be.
Yes, it may burn. Yes, it may need refining. But I would rather live amongst people who care too much than one where no one cares at all.
I’ve also learned this: we cannot build brave communities if we are paralyzed by the possibility of getting it wrong. We cannot raise prophetic voices if we treat every raised voice as a threat. We cannot nurture future leaders if we train them to be lemmings.
We need people who are not afraid. Who will risk being wrong in the service of something right. Who will speak hard truths, challenge lazy habits, and love others fiercely enough to call them to grow.
We need people who will say:
I’m not angry—I’m alive.
I’m not lashing out—I’m reaching in.
I’m not here to burn it all down—I’m here because I still believe in what we can become.
The line is there. We must honor it. But we must also learn to dance right up to its edge—with courage and compassion, humility and heat.
Because the greatest danger isn’t passion.
The greatest danger is numbness.
And maybe that’s why our tradition has never been afraid of fire.
We usher in Shabbat with flame.
We end it with flame.
We mark mourning and memory with a flickering light.
We bless the new soul of a child and the eternal soul of the dead with fire at our fingertips.
From the ner tamid to the Hanukkiah, from the Havdalah candle to the yahrzeit flame—Judaism insists that fire is part of who we are.
It reminds us that holiness is not always gentle. That light comes with heat. That love can singe, and still be love.
So yes, we must be careful with fire.
But we must never stop lighting it.
Because I would rather live in a world where someone risks burning their fingers trying to light a holy fire than in one where everyone just watches from the dark.
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