P
ain is something we all try to avoid. We’ll get local anesthesia before dental work, we’ll take a decongestant for a cold, we’ll pop a Tylenol when we have a headache.
At the same time, we recognize that pain serves a very important function. It’s a signal, alerting us to the need to find the underlying cause of our pain, prompting us to take action.
Imagine if a person were impervious to the pain of a burn. His entire hand might be damaged beyond repair before he even noticed he was touching something red hot. If a person never felt the pain of a sore throat, his entire body might be ravaged by the streptococcus bacteria without him realizing it.
My uncle Reb Volvie Perlstein a”h was a Holocaust survivor who heroically didn’t eat any nonkosher food during the war. He wasn’t able to feel pain in much of his body because his nerve endings had been damaged by the relentless beatings he endured at the hands of the Nazis.
