Holy Anger in the Wilderness this Shavuot
- Kirva
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Jake Green
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from believing deeply in the possibility of a better world while living through evidence, again and again, of how far away it still is.
As we begin Sivan and prepare ourselves for Shavuot, I find myself thinking about the wilderness. Soon, we will reach the revelation at Sinai again.
Our texts teach us that revelation did not come immediately after liberation, but rather, there was time and distance from our departure from Egypt. The Israelites wandered. They felt anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty. But they kept moving toward the promised future. They wandered through the wilderness until they were ready to receive the Torah.
Often, our justice work — our collective efforts to build a better future — feels like that wilderness.
We all know about the profound stain on our society that is gun violence.
Over and over, there have been watershed moments that felt like they could be the last straw, the last time we’d see such a heartbreaking headline. Newtown. Pulse. Tree of Life. Parkland. Last year, the antisemitic murder of two people outside of the Capital Jewish Museum. And just yesterday, a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego left at least three worshippers dead as Muslims gathered in community.
Moments like these fundamentally shape how I move through the world as a queer person and as a Jew. Each of these has caused a rupture, brought grief, and felt terribly familiar.
Years ago, when I worked at Hillel, I helped organize hundreds of Jewish students to join the March for Our Lives. And today at NCJW, my work on gun violence prevention is part of our broader vision for safety in our communities — a vision rooted in the belief that everyone deserves to live freely and safely without fear of violence.
There are many days when our progress feels stalled, or worse, like it's moving backwards.
At some point during my time in the Ovdim fellowship, we studied the concept of “holy anger” — the bold tension between the danger of rage that consumes and the possibility of fury that can reveal what is sacred enough to protect.
In Shemot, God appears to Moses through fire that burns but does not consume. And later, the Torah repeatedly uses the language of burning heat — charah apo, literally “his nose burned hot” — to describe anger in the face of oppression.
We’re taught that anger on its own can be destructive. It can overtake our wisdom and lead to destruction. But holy anger is more balanced. As we refuse to become numb, this holy anger can help transform grief into moral clarity.
We are angry for good reason. We encounter something broken that we yearn to repair.
The Omer annually invites us to a period of spiritual yearning — an incremental spiritual practice of readying ourselves for the Torah. It’s repetitive. It requires discipline. It marks our collective transformation.
Justice work feels similarly incremental. We don’t often have the opportunity to realize huge change at once. It’s a series of individual actions, small wins, and periodic setbacks. We have to show up over and over again in the wilderness.
We have to trust that revelation will come. That our vision is possible.
As Shavuot comes, Sivan begins, and Pride Month approaches, I keep returning to the idea that revelation has to be communal. It’s a collective process for a reason — because the Torah belongs to everyone. So that no one could claim ownership over it. So that it would be received together, as a people, or not at all.
Maybe that collective witnessing is part of the lesson. Today, we encounter tragedy so regularly that it feels constant. And because of our 24-hour news cycle, we have that encounter collectively, too. Within moments, we all bear witness to what is broken — to violence in schools, synagogues, churches, clubs, museums, and mosques.
This collective experience asks for something we can share, too. We must not only witness together or mourn together, but build together. To channel our holy anger toward a world where everyone can gather in community safely and freely.
We may be uncertain about the future, frightened of the stakes. But we have to have fundamental trust in the imperfect, collective process. The future we yearn for will come when we choose not to abandon our tougher emotions, but to channel them. When we let them flow through instead of consuming us.
So, too, will liberation come — but only when we keep counting in the wilderness.
Chag sameach,
Jake Green
VP of Strategic Communications, NCJW
Kirva Ovdim Alum