Did They Know the Mind Is in the Brain?

Shir asks: "Hello. During an academic course, the lecturer mentioned that he is unaware of any reference to the brain in our Torah. I decided to investigate this, as all the wisdom of the world is found in our Torah. Is there evidence for this? The lecturer mentioned that if I provide evidence, he will share it in his course, so this is also a matter of sanctifying Hashem's name. Thank you, Shir"

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Hello Shir,

Judaism has always seen the human body as a vessel serving the soul because the true source of our consciousness and thought is found in the soul. The body is merely the vehicle that expresses the soul's intelligent will, just as a car drives the driver within it. Therefore, all the body's organs—despite their complexity—are merely an intricate machine in the hands of the true driver, the soul. The brain doesn't think thoughts; rather, the soul within the brain uses it as a tool to express its desires, just as a driver uses a car to travel from place to place.

The soul fills the entire body, as Hazal said: (Berachot, page 10, a): "Just as Hashem fills the whole world, so the soul fills the entire body".

However, it certainly seems that the main machinery is indeed the brain, and through it, the soul controls the body. There are hints of this in the scriptures and even among Hazal, who viewed the brain as the tool the soul uses to express the ability to speak and think in this world.

The first hint is the fact that the Torah requires us to place tefillin of the hand—against the strength of our body and our heart, which pumps blood to all the organs—and the tefillin of the head—against the brain, the source of intellect and thoughts. The head tefillin can indicate the importance the Torah attributes to the intellectual source, which is the head. Furthermore, it is found that the front brain has four sections, just as the tefillin have four compartments.

The Torah repeatedly uses the term "head" as a source that directs and controls the body and its organs—in the following examples, the "head"'s control over the nation is described: "The Lord said to Moses, take all the heads of the people" (Numbers 25:4), "You are head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed you as king over Israel" (Samuel 1, Chapter 16, 17). The very expressions "head" and "first" can teach us about the importance of the head, which indicates control over all the organs.

Also, in the Talmud, expressions are found that hint that the brain is the source of intellect and thought. For example, there is a common phrase used to express dissatisfaction towards an argument that seems very illogical (Menachot, Chapter 8): "He said to him: I think he has no brain in his head", a saying also expressed in Yevamot (Chapter 1), meaning the brain is the source of intellect, and one lacking in brain is foolish. A similar saying is mentioned throughout the Shas and halachic texts: "and not from lightheadedness" (Pesachim, Chapter 10). This again indicates that the source of knowledge and thinking is in the head.

On the other hand, expressions in the Bible relating to the heart are said metaphorically, for example: "And he told her all his heart" (Judges 16:17). The heart, as known, pumps blood to all the organs and to the brain and is therefore rightly considered to maintain life and is used as a metaphor for the soul that enlivens the entire body. This is why the heart holds significant importance in biblical language.

The first direct reference to the brain's topic is found in the writings of Maimonides, who was also an important physician. While other scholars did not see the need to describe the brain's function (as again, they saw the soul as the true source controlling the body), Maimonides was the first to explicitly write 800 years ago that the brain commands all the organs and even explained how the process takes place through the nerves and organs operated from the brain (from Guide for the Perplexed, Part Three - Chapter 32, freely translated into plain Hebrew):

"When you contemplate the natural acts of Hashem, the wisdom and grace of Hashem will become clear to you in the creation of living beings, the combination of their organs, and their connections to each other, step by step. An example of this is in how the organs are moved. The front part of the brain is very soft, its rear part is harder. The spinal cord brain is harder than it, and becomes harder as it extends. The nerves are the sensory and movement instruments. Therefore, the nerves controlling delicate senses, like moving the eyelid and cheek, have sprung from the brain. And the nerves needed to move large organs come from the spinal cord brain. But the thin nerve originating in the brain is soft and cannot move an organ, and therefore Hashem designed the body so that the nerve connects to a fiber, and that fiber connects to a muscle, so that the nerve is stiffened by bands and becomes a tendon, the tendon is attached to a bone and sticks to it. Thus, the nerve can move the organ gradually this way. I have described this example to you because the Creator's wisdom is exposed in such wonders, in the utility of the organs, all calculated, and clear and understandable to those who reflect on it with understanding and insight."

We see that Maimonides described 800 years ago the wonders of creation through how the brain commands all the body's organs, and indeed, these are empowering and wonderful ideas.