Don’t Allow the Pain to become Permanent

Gemara: How do we know that we should wash the wound of mila (circumcision) on the third day even if it is on Shabbat? It is based on the pasuk, "It was on the third day [since the circumcisions of the people of Shechem], as they were in pain" (Bereishit 34:25).



Ein Ayah: The set impression on the nature and on one’s spirit is the one that emerges from the repetition of impactful matters, until the point that they become fit to be considered permanent. We find both in the Torah and in the natural world that triple repetition is that which gives the status of permanence, progressing through the three stages of occurrence: existence, chance, permanence.

Something that occurs once just indicates that it is found. Once it happens a second time, "an arm is outstretched to record the chance event in a way that the occurrence is known." This accompanies the matter but also leaves the scene quickly.

A third appearance is already a step toward permanence, and the impression it leaves strengthens in every case. If the occurrence is the existence of sickness, three days of pain, with the experience of three time periods passing in a painful manner, this makes an impression on a person as being under the power of illness coming to a head. The state of good health, which is the normal state Hashem provided for life, becomes opposed by a feeling of affliction. On the third day, the height of the pain comes, but then it starts receding, as it says in the pasuk: "It was on the third day, as they were in pain."