[Avodah] [Areivim] Interesting article in weekly Hamodia

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, April 19, 2007 4:29 am, R Samuel Svarc wrote to Areivim:
: In this weeks Hamodia, Section E, first page, there is an interesting
: article titled, "His Brain Made Him Do It". Some excerpts follow.

: "The American legal system may never be the same again, if breakthroughs in
: neuroscience continue to gain acceptance in court. Recent advances in the
: study of the human brain indicate that malformations or damage to parts of
: the brain can account for violent behavior beyond the control of the
: perpetrator. Criminal behavior that was once blamed on social conditions or
: parental abuse are now being blamed on the brain."

: And this tragically apropos one, "In 1966 at the University of Texas,
: Charles Whitman went on a murderous rampage, killing 15 people before being
: shot down by police officers. Whitman was discovered after an autopsy to
: have a tumor that was putting pressure on his amygdala."

: For those of us who don't know what an amygdala is, like myself, I'll paste
: the definition.

: "An almond-shaped neural structure in the anterior part of the temporal lobe
: of the cerebrum; intimately connected with the hypothalamus and the
: hippocampus and the cingulate gyrus; as part of the limbic system it plays
: an important role in motivation and emotional behavior"


I have a blog entry at <http://tinyurl.com/yxwr7h> which deals with the
neshamah-brain question in a way that IMHO resolves such questions.

Beqitzur, as a teaser to get you to chase the link:

Using the "atzilus" model for creation, physical objects can be seen as the
spot of the Light of shefa as it hits the wall of olam ha'asiyah.

NhC defines the neshamah as being unique in that it contains the unity of all
the kochos of all the olamos. It is not a slice of a "beam of shefa", but the
beam in its entirety.

The brain is where that same beam is embodied on the physical plane.

The connection between neshamah and brain is therefore not causal, not two
things where one triggers events in the other. And yet by saying that the
brain is the manifestation of the neshamah in this imperfect physical world, I
am not saying the two are identical.

Please read the full entry before commenting.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter