Rabbi Stephen Robbins takes us through his life journey. He started his life dead, removed from his mother as a stillbirth, but the doctor breathed life back into him. This began a life filled with pain and trauma: four other near-death experiences, multiple traumatic illnesses (including hepatitis), a lung disease that led to 3 collapses, a massive shingles episode that has added to my chronic excruciating pain for the past eleven years, and much more.
One of the most traumatic moments of his childhood was being raped at the young age of 12 by a trusted friends older brother. As he explains, the most traumatic, confusing, and shameful part about the situation was how his body responded the way it did.
And yet while he has lived constantly with immense pain, he has rarely suffered. Pain is a state of body, suffering is a state of mind. Rabbi Stephen explains how he only suffer when he loses his attachment to his soul. When he regains it, the suffering leaves and he is left only with pain and the illnesses.