Run-Ins with Death
By Michael Nagler
ONE FINE SPRING DAY between classes and office hours I went out to the campus pool as usual for a swim. I weathered the mild shock of the cold water (not very) and churned out in my lane. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a student off to my right flailing about in the next lane. The pool was only about four feet deep at that point, so I didn’t understand what I was seeing.
The lifeguard did. In no time he was in the water, got to him and with the perfect technique I had learned, in some class or other, but never used, reached across him, grabbed his right hand with his own, and with a powerful side stroke, the near victim buoyed up on his hip, churned over to the side of the pool, firmly placed the fellow’s hand on the edge 𑁋 and gracefully vaulted onto the deck and climbed back up to his chair.
That’s it?
Even I was shaken by what I saw; imagine the student who had just stared death in the face. After a while I went looking for him in the locker room. Not wanting to embarrass him I didn’t bring up what had just happened but simply chatted for a while until he looked like he was calm enough to get back to the day. But I pondered. . .
That lifeguard, so well trained, saved his fellow student from death. Who could fault him? But what would he have done if he were aware of that student’s 𑁋 of our 𑁋 full humanity? We are, according to an ancient model, body, mind, and spirit. To help his mind get past the trauma one would have helped him out of the pool, looked him in the eye carefully, maybe gave him a pat on the back, maybe offered some advice about holding onto the ropes when he felt insecure in the pool, and made sure he was OK. So much for the mind.
Then, if we were a mature society that knew what a human being is; if we were aware that we have a spiritual dimension, someone would sit with the poor guy for some time and explain, ‘you just had a brush with death, my friend. I’m so sorry. But you know, someday it will actually happen 𑁋 for all of us. But know this: that what we call ‘death’ happens only to the body. There is something in us that does not, that cannot die; and if we can learn to identify ourselves with that 𑁋 and some have done it 𑁋 there’s no more death, and no more fear. Having a brush with death and surviving, as you’ve just done, can actually be a great benefit.’
The reason I’m bringing all this up is that I keep thinking about it when I hear about the, or one of the most brutal conflicts happening in the world: Gaza. (I’m trying to stay calm, but a close friend of mine was almost killed there two days ago). Let’s be perfectly clear, I am not excusing Israel for this horror; I’m trying to understand it. The Jews of Europe were subjected to the most widespread, brutal abuse in recorded history. They were well-nigh annihilated, along with their cultural heritage of 3,000 years. I don’t think you and I can really imagine the depth of this trauma 𑁋 and G_d grant we never have to. But when it was finally over, what did we do, we of the ‘free world’? We said, ‘why don’t you just leave Europe and go back to that nice country your ancestors came from 2,000 years ago: here’s a little money to get you started.’
At best (and let’s not even mention the slight complication that the land was already inhabited!), the ‘international community’ paid some attention to their physical existence. With the exception of a few psychiatrists here and there, like Gabor Maté, nobody felt responsible for addressing that mass mental trauma. Indeed, would we even know how?
And this is the final lesson to be drawn from what followed and is still far from resolved, the genocide in Gaza: until we find some way to address the severe, widespread trauma of war, we better not fight them.
