The Gemara teaches that “any person who becomes angry, if he is a wise man, his wisdom leaves him.” This is derived from a certain incident brought in the Torah (see Bamidbar 31, from v. 14) where Moshe Rabbeinu became angry, causing him to be unable to recall a certain part of Torah knowledge that he had previously known (see Pesachim 66b). Thus, Moshe’s state of anger caused part of his wisdom to be temporarily removed.

At first glance, one might say that this cause and effect is a punishment of sorts—that one who is angry is punished with loss of wisdom. However, Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz seems to say that this cause and effect is a natural process in the human makeup, since the nature of anger is that it “burns” one’s wisdom; anger naturally causes one’s knowledge to diminish (see Sichot Mussar 87 where he proves this). Indeed, we may suggest that this notion is perhaps already indicated by the Orchot Tzaddikim (Shaar HaKaas) who seems to say that anger drives away wisdom from one’s heart.

That anger can overpower and shroud a person’s intellectual faculties—causing an inability to access one’s complete knowledge base—may be seen from an extreme incident in our parsha where we perhaps see that anger doesn’t just diminish one’s intellect and wisdom, it might even cause one to act irrationally and to engage in self-defeating behaviors.

By the second plague of frogs, Rashi teaches that originally the plague started with just one sole frog. Yet, as Rashi continues, “They (the Egyptians) would hit it, and it streamed forth swarms and swarms [of frogs].” (And eventually, so many frogs were issued forth that, as the pasuk says, they “covered the land of Egypt”). It seems from Rashi that the Egyptians repeatedly and continuously hit this original frog, and each time they hit it, more frogs spewed forth from it.

Based on this, the Steipler (Rav Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky) asks the following glaring question: When the Egyptians saw that hitting the frog only produced more and more frogs, logic dictates that they should have ceased from hitting it in order that they not cause even more frogs to emerge! So why did they continue to hit it despite seeing the repercussions?

The Steipler seems to explain as follows: The Egyptians became angry, and once they became angry, the middah of anger dictated [and propelled them] to do just the opposite of what they should have rationally and logically chosen. For once they were in a state of anger, they now thought that if the frog continues to emit more frogs upon being hit, then how much more so should they continue to hit it as much as they can and take revenge! And the more they hit it, the more angry they got. Consumed by the burning nature of anger, this cycle continued on and on, to the point that, as the pasuk (8:2) says, the frog infestation “covered the land of Egypt” (see Birkat Peretz, Vaera).

One might think that no significantly greater harm came about from the Egyptians’ actions of continuously hitting this frog,thereby producing more frogs since even if they never had initially begun to hit it, that original sole frog still would have “gotten the job done,” so to speak, and wreaked the intended havoc, since, after all, it was one of the plagues that Hashem brought. However, Rav Reuven Karelenstein points out that the Steipler apparently understands that if the plague would have consisted of just this one frog, the intensity of the plague wouldn’t have been so severe. Essentially then, it was the Egyptians themselves who brought about the full intensity of this plague due to their anger and continuous beatings of the original frog (see Yechi Reuven, Vaera).

The Orchot Tzaddikim seems to say that most people who get angry and persist in their anger don’t pay attention to what they do in their great anger, and that they do many things that they would not have done otherwise for anger removes a person’s intellect. An angry person increases in foolishness (ibid). From the Steipler’s insight, we not only may we learn how anger removes one’s intellect and wisdom and spurs foolishness, we also perhaps can see the danger that anger can lead to, namely, that it may overpower logic, rational thinking and one’s intellectual capacities, so much so that it may ultimately bring one to engage in self-destructive behaviors, while somehow still thinking that those actions are actually helping him.

Binyamin is a graduate of Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan, and Wurzweiler School of Social Work.