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himself.’” Rashi explains: “‘A person is different, since he has intellect’
i.e. this victim; when he took fright he caused himself to take fright,
by taking the shock of the sudden noise to heart.”

In maseches Berachos (16a) too it says,“On their marriage night, the
groom of a virgin is exempt from reciting the Shema” because he is
preoccupied. The gemara asks, “If preoccupation is the reason, then
even if a person’s ship sinks at sea he should be exempt from reciting
the Shema!” The gemara answers, “There the groom is preoccupied
with a mitzvah, whereas here he is preoccupied with a permitted [i.e.
but not mandatory] matter.” In other words, a groom’s mind is on the
mitzvah he has to perform, whereas the owner of the sunken ship is
expected to calm himself and not be preoccupied, for a person has the
ability to calm himself.

The Mishneh Halachos adds: “All the more so, just because his
neighbor put up a wall and darkened his home he should not have
distressed himself to such a degree that he died. Instead, Shimon
should have tried again to bring Reuven to a din Torah [i.e. to have
their dispute judged by a beis din], and should not have distressed
himself to such an extent. Reuven is therefore not considered to have
caused Shimon’s death, rather Shimon distressed himself and did so
not unlawfully, for he should have looked after his health particularly
in regard to anger, for Chazal say,‘Whoever gets angry it is as though
he serves idols and all types of Gehinom have power over him’”, see
there.

Further proof to the Mishneh Halachos’s argument can be adduced
from the Mordechai (Beitzah 2, 683), who writes that it is forbidden
to extinguish a fire on Shabbos even according to Rabbi Shimon,
who exempts any act of melachah [forbidden work] done with for a
purpose other than its main purpose [e.g. digging a hole for the dirt,
not the hole]. Even though the Sages allow the puncturing of a pus
pocket, this is because there is physical distress [from the pressure of
the pus]. In other words, whereas the pus blister physically pains him,

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