Sunday diversion / reading the Psalms for medical clues (and rap music)

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Talk about a diversion from Manhattan lofts! Start at a neuroscience blog about Psalm 137, before visiting a (the?) famous Jewish rapper…

Mindhacks notes that the fearsome text of Psalm 137 reads like a description of stroke symptoms, and that a “stroke” is called a stroke because sufferers were thought to have been stricken by God. Fun stuff for a holiday Sunday, no?

If I forget you, Jerusalem,

 may my right hand forget its skill.

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth

 if I do not remember you,

if I do not consider Jerusalem

 my highest joy.

As The Wiki puts it, this psalm “is one of the best known of the Biblical psalms. Its opening lines, "By the rivers of Babylon…" (Septuagint: "By the waters of Babylon…") have been set to music on several occasions”.

The Mindhacks guys found a study noting the similarity to stroke symtoms:

Both right-sided paralysis and loss of expressive speech are clear symptoms of a stroke of the left middle cerebral artery, where the blood flow is blocked – leading to the death of the surrounding brain tissue, suggesting that the Psalm may be wishing these effects on people who forget the importance of Jerusalem.

And they linked to Matisyahu’s use of the Psalm in a music video, worth the time especialy if you have no idea who he is. The hat tip goes to Andrew Sullivan.

© Sandy Mattingly 2012