Lessons from a Near Death Experience

B"H

With SO many various important themes being mentioned in this week's Torah portion; The destruction of Sodom & Gemorah, Issac's birth and circumcision, the near-sacrifice of Issac, among many others - I felt overwhelmed to choose from them. I'll leave it up to you to research a bit ;)
So instead, I'm going to write about a fascinating subject I've been reading about lately in a book entitled: G-d, Rationality and Mysticism.
The subject centers on what Dr. Raymond A. Moody, Jr. calls: 'NDEs' - near-death experiences.

The last 2 chapters of the book which deal with this subject, include many amazing 1st-hand accounts by various people who,
after being considered clinically dead, recount everything they saw and experienced before returning to their bodies alive again.

The author of the book, Yitzchak (Irving) Block, describes how he 1st got involved in researching NDE's:

"(After reading Raymond A. Moody's book on the subject) I wondered if it was really as common as Moody claimed.
He had said that in any random group of 30 people, there will be at least 1 person who has had such an experience.
I found this hard to believe and decided to test it.
I was at that time teaching a course in philosophy of religion near London, Ontario...
(and) asked if anyone in the class had ever heard of such a thing. No one raised a hand. After the class was over, one of the young ladies in the class confided to me that she, herself, had had such an experience, but was reticent to talk about it in public. This is the story she told:
'She was pregnant with here 2nd child and hemorrhaged. She fainted from loss of blood and the next thing she knew she was out of her body looking down at it, while her husband was slapping her wrists in an attempt to revive her. She could see an ambulance backing up in the driveway and watched as the two attendants prepared the ambulance to receive her. She even noticed the license plate of the ambulance. She felt herself moving upwards and then realized that she might be 'dead' and was leaving her family behind. She looked into the next room where her two-year old child was sleeping and felt a desire to return to her body to take care of him, and the next thing she knew she was back in her body looking up at her husband who was slapping her wrists.
She later told her husband the entire story, but he refused to believe her until she described how the ambulance was backed up into the driveway, and the license plate of the ambulance which she remembered. Her husband later checked with the ambulance company to see if the number tallied, and it did. That's when he began to believe the reality of what his wife was describing.'

Now, 20 years after my 1st encounter w/ NDEs & some 12 books I have read on the matter since then...in my mind it is not only rational to accept the truth of NDEs, but actually irrational not to accept them in light of all the evidence."

Block goes on to sight cases he's heard from doctors that are quite impossible to doubt; a great read if you ever get the chance.
--------
Now many, if not all, of the NDErs describe hovering over their bodies & looking down from above, watching it lying lifeless on the ground below.
But what happens next is what is truly amazing and where we can gleam lessons to last us a lifetime.
What these souls experience while they are outside of their bodies, tends to instill in them a greater compassion, kindness,
appreciation of love and learning, an urgency and feeling of purpose in their lives.
Also, "The NDEers live the rest of their lives w/ the conviction that they saw & experienced a realm of reality far superior to the physical world and one to which they look forward to returning to when their time comes to really 'die.'"
What is it that they see?

Unfortunately, there isn't enough room to write all of the various descriptions mentioned.
But a consistent event mentioned by nearly every case is that of a "Life Review."
Similar to watching a movie, one watches a review of every event in one's life, except now you experience it from the point of view
of the other who was helped or hurt. "When I was there in that review there was no covering up. I was the very people that I hurt, and I was the very people I helped to feel good. I wish I could find some way to convey to everyone how good it feels to know that you are responsible & to go through something like this where it is impossible not to face it. It is the most liberating feeling in the world."

One part of Dannion Brinkley's account in his book about his NED is particularly powerful. "...As these visions ended, I had the amazing realization that these Beings were desperately trying to help us, not because we were such good guys, but because without us advancing spiritually here on earth, they could not become successful in their world. "You humans are truly the heroes," a Being told me. "Those who go to earth are heroes and heroines, because you are doing something that no other spiritual beings have the courage to do. You have gone to earth to co-create with G-d."
In 1973, Rachel Noam, a young Israeli woman who grew up on the secular Kibbutz Hashomer Hatzair, was struck on the head by an 18-ft. wooden beam from 5 stories up from a construction site. After describing her initial hovering, then ascent, and then "life review" movie, Rachel describes "...the magnificent stream of light was accompanied by a flow of sublime love, a kind of love I had never before experienced. It was unlike the love of parents toward their children, the love of friends and relatives or the love of Eretz Yisrael. Any love I had ever felt was nothing but a tiny speck compared to this exalted, powerful love. Even if all the sparks of love that abound in this world were to combine they could not equal the powerful, pure love I sensed. Faced with this overpowering love, I felt incapable of remaining an independent entity; I simple melted away...No words can describe the enchantment, the wonder, the incomparable, infinite goodness.
I discerned in it qualities of compassion, spiritual pleasure, strength, happiness and beauty, all in infinite profusion."
Seven years later, Rachel stumbled upon a Siddur (prayer book) at a friend's house in Jerusalem.
The opening words she read on the 1st page were: "Modeh ani lefanecha...I gratefully thank You, O Living and Eternal King, that you returned my soul within me with compassion - abundant is your faithfulness!"
Rachel describes her overwhelming emotions at finally reading what she knew to be true! (Remember that she had never seen a siddur in her life growing up on her kibbutz.) She spent the rest of the night reading it, and slowly grew in her connection to her Jewish observance, enjoying all of the Kabbalah and Chassidut, specifically Tanya, that actually described her soul and spiritual reality.
--------
In Judaism, emphasis on death and the life there-after, while important, is not focused on so much.
For, as Dannion Brinkley heard 1st-hand, the main mission and action is here on earth. While these special accounts of life-after-death can comfort us that the next world is amazing and full of peace and comfort, we must take from them inspiration to focus on our life here in this world, and the preciousness of every moment. Here is where we can fulfill our own unique mission and purpose for our existence.
And as Chassidut explains, the Ultimate intention is really to build this world into a dwelling place for G-d, where He will dwell together with us here on Earth. Why not in heaven?! For, as the mystical techings explain, G-d's Essence, beyond any revelation in the spiritual realms, is found and expressed in this world, and will be revealed with the final Redemption with Moshiach. May it happen now!

I want to end off with one more beautiful account by a woman who's life-review enforced in her the preciousness of life and the importance of the little things done in life, as much as the bigger things:
"For instance, one of the incidents that came across very powerfully in her review was a time when she found a little girl lost in a department store. The girl was crying, and the woman set her up on a counter and talked to her until her mother arrived.
It was those kind of things - the little things you do while not even thinking - that come up most importantly in the review."

I wish you all long life :)
And may we all use out our lives to get in touch with our souls, and to imbue those around us and ourselves with warmth, kindness, and compassion - all in a joyful manner!

Shabbat Shalom!

Daniel
Jerusalem, Israel