The genesis of a psychopath
By zevi770 · May 6, 2013
You know, the Rebbe sort of mocked the notion that when something is found in the bloodstream it is the cause, not the EFFECT, of the emotion
For example, a doctor once wrote to the Rebbe, how when a person is happy, certain chemicals show up in the blood stream; so the Rebbe said, how believers in pantheism get very excited – as has gone on for the past few decades – when they found a chemical cause for a behavior, not realizing that emotions obviously are created in the soul, which manifest in the bloodstream!
This is the current philosophy of modern psychology and medicine, that our thoughts produce the emotions, which then the brain creates chemicals traces of, which is obvious; for if you think happy or sad thoughts, you change your heart rate – think, when you’re watching a movie – if it is scary, your heart rate actually goes up, so our body is based on our mind, not the other way around!
The reason I begin with this introduction, is because, how does a psychopath – a person who has no emotions, no remorse is the common description; but more accurately, doesn’t care; as one book written by a psychologist on psychopaths described it like a stain-glass window, there is a color but no feeling; like a rock, or as the old fashioned saying, “as hard as a rock,” simply someone lacking all emotions, and the test used to discern if a person is a psychopath is when certain words, such as death or other words people fear are said, they react emotionless!
Well, the answer I think is best described by Rabbi Dr. Twersky in his book (forget which one, I think “Dear Dr., Dear Rabbi”) in which he describes a patient who suffered a severe loss and a week later was better, problem was, that now he felt nothing – he gave an example that someone came to fix his leaky sink, but had to switch of all the water in the home, so when emotions become too difficult for us, then what we do, is simply turn off the emotions!
Now as Chassidus teaches, nothing is worse than a cold or hard heart!
For when a heart is warm, loving; a person cares!
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