Why There Is No Pain When Dying Al Kiddush Hashem

Rabbi Tal Zwecker, in his first Jewish Meditation lecture available at the very bottom of this page, says that when one is meditating on his own willingness to give up his life for Hashem, if called upon, must know that he should not imagine pain in the process of giving up one's life. He says that this is because when one does give up their life al kidush Hashem, his death will be painless. And not only will the death be painless, it will be accompanied with a feeling of ecstacy, similar to that felt by Rebbe Akiva, when his flesh was being torn from his body with iron combs. He felt no pain, but rather called out Krias Shema with complete joy, to the astonishment of his students, as it is well known. Rabbi Zwecker said that there is a supernatural and a natural explanation to this lack-of-pain phenomenon. The supernatural explanation is that Hashem takes away the pain as a Chesed. But that there can be a natural or psychological explanation as well.


This made me think of another program I heard on Radio Lab regarding the amazing power of the "Placebo Effect." You can listen to that segment of the program above. Dr. Daniel Carr explained a phenomenon that the thoughts that exist in a person's mind when they are experiencing pain can greatly effect the amount of physical pain they will feel. Soldiers in WWII who were filled with shrapnel needed only minimal morphine and at distant intervals to abate their pain. However, civilians injured in more mundane ways, like gunshot wounds when their stores were held up, experienced significantly more pain and needed much more pain medicine, with much greater frequency. This was explained, possibly, by the thoughts in each person's mind at the time of the injury.

When the soldier realizes that he's been hit with shrapnel, after he gets over the initial shock, he's thinking about the fact that he went through this for a noble reason, he's going to be honored, he'll get a medal, there will be parades, he'll get to go back home, etc. While the storekeeper is thinking, after the initial shock of the injury, "How am I going to pay my bills? What if I lose my house! Who will run the store? The landlord might evict us if we can't pay the rent, etc." The thoughts that accompany the traumatic injury greatly affect the feeling of pain due to that injury.

Perhaps on the psychological explanation side of the lack of pain when one is dying al kidush Hashem, when one has the feeling of being mevatel themselves to what is happening to them in utter subjugation of self to the Ribbono Shel Olam, there is a similar natural pain remittance on an even greater level than a soldier in war.

May we all have the strength to be willing to give up our lives al Kidush Hashem, if called upon, and may we never be called upon!

-Dixie Yid

(Painting above by William Burnheim)

Memory, Forgeting, Music and the Self

I listened to another mp3 program from wnyc.org's program, Radio Lab, on the topic of memory. I have three reflections on the mechanics of memory from that very informative program after listening to the fascinating story of Clive, a musician and conductor who was struck with a disease that took away his ability to remember anything more than 7 seconds in the past. It's an unbelievable story of someone with no past and no memories. All he has is the present. You can listen to that segment of the program here:

First Thought: The Scientists on the program explained memory as the creative act of rebuilding a memory, rather the mere retrieval of memories from a mental filing cabinet. This explains why memories can be added to or subtracted from as they are recalled over and over again. This got me to thinking about how that might relate to the idea of "Zikaron." When we ask Hashem on Rosh Hashana, "Ve'akeidas Yitzchok Lezaro Hayom Berachamim Tizkor!," "Remember the Akeidas Yitzchok for his children with mercy!," what are we really asking? When it says in Shmos 2:23, "וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-נַאֲקָתָם; וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת-בְּרִיתוֹ, אֶת-אַבְרָהָם אֶת-יִצְחָק וְאֶת-יַעֲקֹב," that Hashem remembered his covenant with our fathers, what does that mean? Can Hashem forget anything?

If, however, memory is not simply the mechanical act of retrieval, but the re-creation of the old reality, when we ask Hashem to "remember," what we're really asking is for Hashem to invoke the reality of the past and make it part of the present, but in a much realer way than the mere analogy of re-creative human memory. So when Hashem remembers the Mesiras Nefesh of Yitzchok, He is re-creating that reality now, today, according to Rav Aharon Kahn from Yeshivas Yitzchok Elchonon (pictured to the left).

My second thought about Clive, the man with no memory, is: What am I? A collection of memories? What's the real "you?" I know the neshoma is the real me, but that is such a difficult concept to get one's head around. If I can't remember any of my past Gilgulim, in what sense is that really me? (I suppose that my conscious physical brain, independent of the real me is what can't remember, but still...) If, like Clive, at every moment I felt that I didn't know who I was, where I was, where I came from, what I was doing in that place, I would feel as if I had no "self," no "I." Can anyone out there offer a way to distinguish memory from "self?"

Third: One of the only two things this man with Amnesia did remember was music and his love for music. When people speak to him normally, he knows nothing about music, his life as a conductor, or anything related. However, when they placed his former students in front of him and gave him a conductor's baton, he immediately began reading the music, conducting and leading his students as proficiently as if nothing had every happened. When the piece was over, however, he didn't even remember what had happened. It was exactly as before. What was so deep about music that is is virtually the only thing this man can remember when he can remember nothing else?

In Rav Moshe Weinberger's shiur, "The Power of Music - Tazria-Metzorah," he explains the deep place in the soul that music is connected to. It's unbelieveable but somehow, the soul is deeply connected to music, such that hearing a certain song can evoke feelings from decades ago that had long since been dormant. It can stand out in a person with no memory of anything. It's an amazing koach, and it was very interesting to hear of this Amnesia case, where music was about his only connection to his former self. It is also a mussar haskeil that we have to take very seriously the types of music we listen to and the source of the music we listen to, since it has a very deep connection to who we are.

(Artwork is "Persistence of Memory" by Salvadore Dali)

Why Do We Sleep?

I was listening to a program from wnyc.org (NPR's New York City affiliate) called Radio Lab. The program was explaining various aspects of the purpose and mechanics of sleep. You can listen to that portion of the program here:

It reminded me of a conversation I had with Rabbi Pesach Krohn almost 10 years ago, when I once had the opportunity to spend Shabbos with him. He posed the following question (paraphrased):

Why did Hashem create us with the need for sleep? I can think of good reasons for almost every other part of human life. There are ways in which we can learn and grow spiritually from eating, marriage, breathing, talking, working, etc. But why sleep? It's simply 4-8 hours of time wasted. I understand that we cannot function without it, so in that sense it's productive. But why did Hashem create us with the need for sleep to begin with?

He ended up opining that the only answer he could come up with that was somewhat satisfying to him was that Hashem created sleep so that people would always have the ability to put a sense of finality on the Yesterday. We'd always be able to have a sense of closure and say, "What happened yesterday is over. Today I can start again. It's a new chance." If there were no sleep and one day just ran into the next, then we would never really feel that our past was behind us. Today would just be one long continuation of yesterday's failures. Sleep means a break and an opening for Teshuva.

One of the Scientists interviewed on Radio Lab explained one of the functions of sleep. The brain collects memories of virtually everything that happens during the day. Many of those memories are worth remembering and integrating and others are not. During sleep, the brain is very active, and neurologically dulls down and washes away most of the non-important or minor memories. The only memories left over are the stronger, more important ones which could not be washed away by the neurological waves that cleansed the person's memories throughout the night. This phenomenon explains why people sometimes work on mastering a skill or an information-set before going to bed, without mastering it, but upon awaking are surprised to find that they have made much progress. It is not so much that sleep helped him learn what was blocked to him before. Rather, it washed away all of the other memories that were getting in the way of the primary one.

This is a bit like what Rabbi Krohn suggested. As we go through our days, we build up not only unwanted memories of inconsequential events and information, but also thoughts, words and actions that are better left in the past. Just as sleep washes away the thoughts and memories that deserve to be left in the past on a neurological level, spiritually too sleep is needed to push the past into the past, so that we can move on with what is worth saving to a new day, unencumbered by yesterday's failings.

-Dixie Yid

(Picture courtesy of azfotos.com)