13. Mind Matters

Thought is powerful.

Living in a materialistic society, this may not sound too convincing at first, but thanks to recent advances in science, technology and medicine even the most hard-nosed among us are starting to think about thinking more seriously.

Take health for example. What is the number one risk factor for sickness and death? Stress. And where does stress start? With thought, an ephemeral, non- physical concoction of the mind. From there, it hits the physical brain, then the hormones and then the immune system, causing a cascade of biochemical changes that ultimately spell the difference between wellness and disease for millions of people every day.

In fact an entire medical discipline, called psychoneuroimmunology, has grown up around this understanding in recent years, and there are even several medical (as well as alternative wellness) journals dedicated exclusively to understanding and managing health from the top down, mind first.

And lest one think that mind-based medicine is just for flakes, hypochondriacs and the like, the consensus of medical opinion today is that some 60 to 90 percent of all doctor’s visits are really mind- body problems, according to Prof. Herbert Benson, MD, founding president of Harvard University’s Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston. For some the fix is counseling, for others, it’s spirituality, meditation or yoga. Not surprisingly, the biggest boosts in wellness often come from prayer, faith and religious observance, as documented in such resources as Oxford University’s Handbook of Religion and Medicine, a fat tome that rivals Gray’s Anatomy, both in weight and in authority.

The buzzword for all this is integrative medicine. The philosophy behind it is that when spirit, mind, emotions, and lifestyle are all in harmony, wellness is maximized. When any of these or unaligned, stress and dysfunction intrude, and mental and physical wellness are compromised.

But how new is all this really? For mainstream medicine, very; for Judaism, not at all. Maimonides, the renowned medieval rabbinic scholar and court doctor, writes in his Regime of Health that his outlook is based on “a healthy soul in a healthy body.” The integrative approach is fundamental to Chassidism specifically, as the following dialogue illustrates:

In the winter of 1902-1903, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, known as the RaShaB, met in Vienna with Sigmund Freund who asked the RaShaB to define Chassidus, ie, the core teachings of the Chassidic movement.

The RaShaB explained to Freud that Chassidus requires that "the mind explains to the heart what the person should want, and that the heart implements in the person's life that which the brain understands."

Freud then asked, “How do you do this? Are not the head and heart two continents completely separated? Does not a great sea divide them?"

To this, the RaShaB replied, "The task is to build a bridge that will span these two continents, or at least to connect them with telephone lines and electric wires so that the light of the mind, the light of the brain, should reach the heart as well."

Similarly, about a century earlier, the first Chassidic text, the Tanya, established the integration of thought, speech and action in its mission statement. Emblazoned on the frontispiece is the Biblical verse (Deut. 30:14) that serves as the spiritual DNA for the work as a whole, “For this thing is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.”

In a world whose motto for centuries had been follow your heart, it is refreshing to find that the new focus on mindfulness and health is but another example of scientific wisdom converging to the timeless truths of Torah. And that gives pause for thought.

Rebbe Rayyatz - Likkutei Dibburim, Vol. 1