He shall heal. (Shemos 21:19)
This is the source that a doctor has permission to practice healing. (Berachos 60a)
Painkillers
When Hakadosh Baruch Hu brings illness upon a person, he is allowed to try to heal the illness. However, one of the biggest fields in medicine today is painkillers. In the past, doctors focused mainly on remedying illness. But today there a highly developed science of pain relief even if the disease itself cannot be cured.
Pharmacists say that only about fifteen percent of the medicines sold by them are remedial. The rest are pain relievers, whether it is physical or emotional pain.
In the past, people considered pain to be part of life. It is recounted that one of tzaddikim of past generations suffered greatly from pain in his legs. When he grew old, those close to him urged him to go to a doctor. He did, and the doctor healed him, and his pain was relieved. The tzaddik then remarked that he suddenly realized it is possible to walk around in Hashem’s world without pain. He said that he always thought pain to be an integral part of life. Just as a person sees and hears, so he also has aches and pains.
The Shechinah’s Pain
Chazal say as follows about experiencing pain:
When a person is in pain, what does the Shechinah say? “My head feels heavy, My arm feels heavy.”
Rashi explains that the Shechinah feels heaviness of head and arm, so to speak, similar to how a person feels when he is exhausted and worn out.
My grandfather would tell of a certain pious Jew who was badly beaten in the street by non-Jews. While he was being hit, the Jew cried out, “It doesn’t hurt me! It doesn’t hurt me!” Afterward, people asked him what he meant by that. He explained that when a Jew experiences pain, Hashem suffers, too, and he didn’t want Hashem to suffer because of him.
When a person is in pain, the Shechinah does not just empathize with his pain. It is much more than that. It is as if the Shechinah, too, is in pain and suffering. There is a concept called נושא בעול עם חבירו. When a friend or relative suffers, we are concerned about his wellbeing. We look for ways to help him. Not only does Hashem show us this type of concern, but it is if Hashem Himself is experiencing the same pain. עמו אנוכי בצרה – “Hashem is with him in his trouble.”
When we have a headache, the problem is not our pain, but Hashem’s pain. There is nothing as powerful as pain to connect us tightly to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
We need to take advantage of this wonderful connection to Hashem.
Pain is not an end in itself. In the physical world, pain indicates that something in the body is not functioning properly. When a person has an infection, his body temperature rises. Running a temperature is a warning signal that there is a problem somewhere in the body and it needs to be treated. Something in the vital processes is not working right.
There are people whose body does not react to infection by a rise in temperature, and they are in a high-risk category, because the infection is likely to spread throughout their body without them noticing it.
Pain is a sign from Hashem. It has one clear purpose: that we should exercise our will to live.
The Drop of Ink
The following allegory illustrates this. A young child is being taught how to paint. The teacher guides the child in producing a painting of steps leading up to a building, and the painting comes out great. The child worked on it day after day until it was a real work of art.
Suddenly a big, ugly drop of paint fell in the middle of the picture. The child broke out in bitter tears. The picture he worked on so hard, for such a long time, is ruined!
The teacher reassured him, saying, “Don’t cry, we have a picture of steps here, and in the middle of it is a drop of paint. Let’s add in a child walking down the steps, and we will incorporate the drop of paint into the picture of the child.”
Now the painting is even better than before.
All of life contains hidden meaning. Just as esrog has hidden meaning, just as matzah has hidden meaning, so life itself has hidden meaning. We don’t know the purpose for which we are alive or what role we are meant to play in the world. These are hidden matters known only to Hashem Who created us.
When suffering comes upon us, or anything else that is ostensibly disturbing our routine, this is like a drop of pain falling into the middle of our tranquil life. There is a hidden meaning in this drop of paint. Hashem has a reason for sending it to us.
What should we do with it? If we try to erase this “drop of paint,” if the child in the above-mentioned allegory will try to wipe away the drop of paint that fell on his picture, it will smear all over and ruin the whole painting.
So instead of trying to get rid of suffering, we should rather incorporate it into our life. We should accept its presence and bring out its true message, the message that Hashem has sent us.
We should create “life” out of it. Growth and eternal deeds. Then, our whole life will take on a completely different dimension, a much more wonderful dimension. Life will be much more beautiful than it was without this suffering.
The Danger in Suffering
Although suffering brings us a wonderful opportunity to connect to Hashem, it can also lead us in the opposite direction, chas v’shalom.
When suffering comes upon a person he is liable to say, “I can’t daven in such a state, I can’t learn Torah like this,” and so forth. Suffering is like a car. It can get us very far quickly and easily. But if we don’t know how to drive, a car can be detrimental to us.
There are people who are very emotional, and when something bothers them, when something is disturbing them and worrying them, they go to the fridge and start to eat.
This is one way to deal with a stressful problem. But if we follow this way, we lose out on a precious treasure. We lose the opportunity to connect with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We were granted a wonderful gift: emotional distress. And instead of taking advantage of it to connect ourselves to Hashem, we connect to a piece of chocolate cake.
Pain, Yes. Sadness, No.
“Pain” is not synonymous with “sadness.” There is happiness and there is sadness. Happiness expresses hope, growth, aspiration. Sadness expresses despair.
There is an expression of Chazal that we could apply to this:
Poverty follows the pauper.
Poverty follows poor people around. By contrast, nothing brings more riches to a person than riches itself. Nothing brings more poverty to a person than poverty itself. When a person conducts himself in a wealthy and dignified manner, this itself brings him wealth and dignity.
In the same way, nothing brings a person more joy than joy itself. The best segulah for simchah is to create joy artificially, and true joy will follow.
When a person is in pain he should not try to escape. If he trains himself to overcome it, he can live with the pain. But there is one thing we must do, and that is learn a lesson from the pain. We should take the force of pain, which stimulates our will to live, our will to grow, and take advantage of it for true life. We should daven with more kavanah, draw ourselves closer to Hashem, become partners with Him in His world.
Then the suffering will turn into a wonderful gift that Hashem gave us.
Suffering is the force that awakens the will to live, the will to increase our growth. We should take advantage of it to build ourselves and elevate ourselves spiritually.
