Is There a Doctor in the House - Mishpatim
The shiur is dedicated לעילוי נשמת אבי מורי חנוך הענוך בן בנימין ז"ל, on his yahrzeit, today, כד שבט תשפ"ב.
וַעֲבַדְתֶּם אֵת ה' אֱ-לֹקֵיכֶם וּבֵרַךְ אֶת לַחְמְךָ וְאֶת מֵימֶיךָ וַהֲסִרֹתִי מַחֲלָה מִקִּרְבֶּךָ. (שמות כג, כה)
Our generation is privileged to have experienced the COVID pandemic. “Privileged” may seem like a strange word in the circumstances and my use of it is in no way intended to diminish the suffering and loss of so many loved ones, the untold millions who have perished רחמנא ליצלן from this terrible virus. I say privileged, because not everyone and not every generation is זוכה to witness אצבע א-לוקים with such vivid clarity as we are experiencing it. True, HKB”H is מחדש בטובו בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית and nature itself is an astounding miracle, every second of every day, but repetitious “normalcy” tends to dull the amazement. When something that is out of the ordinary comes along, of the enormity of COVID, it jolts our perception of how the world really works and our place and purpose in it.
One of the central questions that HKB”H is glaringly posing to us as individuals and as a society, is the balance and the prioritization between life and livelihood.
After a seemingly endless stream of variants and lockdowns, with no end in sight in the foreseeable future, mankind is faced with a dilemma, a Solomon’s choice. Do you lock down an entire country to save the lives of around 1% of the population, knowing that by doing so you will be severely damaging, even destroying many people’s parnasa, traumatizing and psychologically damaging children who cannot go to school and isolating the elderly from their families? The issue of the psychological health of our children and our elderly parents is a weighty one, but in our modern, “advanced” society and global economy it has been sidelined by the two “major” conflicts – saving lives and making a livelihood.
The most recent variant, the Omicron, is perhaps not a good indicator of such a conflict because it appears that its fatality rate is much lower than the previous strains. However the philosophical question remains – “What price is society required to pay to save the lives of 1% of the population”. If you do not lock down the country and basically freeze most of the economy, there will be rampant spread of the virus and according to the known statistics around 1% will die from it.
As we know, the answer to this question and ALL other possible questions imaginable can be found in the Torah. The answer to our above question can be found in this week’s parsha davka. In developing this principle, I would like to bring excerpts from my sefer מאיר פנים. As you know the Lechem Hapanim symbolizes parnasa and anything and everything relating to parnasa can be learned from the Lechem Hapanim.
Let’s begin our journey by examining the above passuk from this week’s parsha. HKB”H will bless your bread, your water and remove all illness from your midst. The Mefarshim say that the reference is not specifically to bread and water, but to all food and drink, meaning parnasa. From the order of things in the passuk it appears that the priority is first given to sustenance and only then to health.
However, elsewhere we find the reverse, that priority is first given to health and then to parnasa – in the Shmona Esrei. Three times a day we first recite the prayer רפאנו ה' ונרפא asking for health and only after that do we say ברך עלנו את השנה הזאת asking for parnasa.
So which comes first, health or parnasa?
Health comes first. How do we know this? From קריאת שמע. It says there וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת ה' אֱ- לֹקֶיךָ בְּכָל לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶךָ – you are required to love HKB”H to such a degree that you are prepared to even sacrifice your life וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁךָ and all your money וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶךָ. It places life before money.
Silly question - If someone is willing to lay down their life for HKB”H, then why does the Torah need to say וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶךָ? Chazal say the reason is because there are some people to whom money is even more important than their life and they too have to be prepared to sacrifice what is most sacred to them. Interestingly, in the following paragraph והיה אם שמע, it repeats וּלְעָבְדוֹ בְּכָל לְבַבְכֶם וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁכֶם but there it does not say וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶכֶם. The Mefarshim say that the reason is that the first paragraph שמע ישראל is in the singular, while the second והיה אם שמע is in the plural. It is possible to find individuals to whom money is more important than their lives, but they are few and far between. When talking in the plural, about the general populous, such a concept does not exist. From this it is clear that life is valued higher than parnasa. Why then does our passuk from Mishpatim above reverse the order?
The Ramban on that passuk introduces a very interesting concept. The Ramban says that it is a progression - the one is derived from the other. It begins with HKB”H blessing your food and your drink. If your food and drink are blessed by Hashem, not only does such blessed food and drink prevent you from illness, but they will also cure you from illness.
The Ramban is implying that a blessing of food and drink entails two distinct and interconnected components – the physical properties of the food and the spiritual properties. If HKB”H blesses your food, both properties of the blessing will be present and such food and drink will prevent and cure illness.
On a physical level, if food is blessed, it contains all the nutrients to sustain health and prevent disease. Theoretically in such a case a normal person (with a normal body and metabolism, with no genetic predispositions to illness) who eats such blessed food, will not become ill - on a biophysical level, or if they do, they can cure it by eating certain other blessed foods.
On a metaphysical, spiritual level, if a person elevates their food from a physical level to a higher spiritual level, by observing all the food related mitzvot – kashrut, brachot, trumot uma’asrot, shmita, leket, pe’ah, shichecha, etc. they promote health, not of the physical body, but of the spiritual neshama and that – in conjunction with the physical component – will prevent and cure illness.
WOW! The Ramban is basically saying that if we are makpid on eating healthy food and observing all the food related mitzvot – we will never suffer illness!
The Rambam follows a similar vein, but being a physician, he qualifies this somewhat. The Rambam also accounts for anomalous starting statistics (someone who does not have a normal body or metabolism, etc.) that they will first need to restore the balance by eating specific foods or quantities of foods until their health is restored, which may then be followed by a general healthy regimen. These concepts are all detailed in הלכות דעות.
According to this school of thought, the Ramban and the Rambam, illness and disease are results of an imbalance. An imbalance caused by eating the incorrect food and drink, which upsets the biochemical balance in the body, lowers the immune system etc. An imbalance in our spiritual level that lowers our “spiritual immunity” and opens us to all kinds of מקטרגים and פרענויות.
And it is not either/or. In מאיר פנים I explore the interaction between the spiritual neshama, its physical manifestations in our biochemistry and anatomy and vise versa. Our neshama is not insulated from our body, nor is our body insulated from our neshama – even though they are incompatible forms of “matter”, there is constant bidirectional communication between the two.
The reason that bread and water are specifically mentioned is because these are the two primary components of the שפע עליון. In מאיר פנים there is a discussion what the essence of the שפע עליון is. It is a combination of the creation of life/offspring, rain גבורות גשמים and food/parnasa.
There is another school of thought that says that illness and disease occur in the world because HKB”H wants our tefilot.
To understand this, I need to tell you about ספר הרפואות. Chazal tell of a book in which there was a list of remedies for any and every malady known to mankind in the past and that will occur in the future. There is a מחלוקת who originally wrote this book. According to ספר הפליאה it was written by an angel who then taught it to Adam Harishon. The Ramban and the Rambam say that it was written by Shlomo Hamelech.
Either way, the Gemara (Brachot 10a, Pesachim 56a) speaks about Chizkiya Hamelech who took this book and hid it in such a way that it could never be found גנז ספר רפואות. Rashi (Pesachim 56a) says he did this because people who became ill would simply refer to this book and cure themselves and thus bypass HKB”H and not pray to Him for refuah. You could compare it somewhat to a person who has blind faith in doctors and does not believe in tefila. In truth however, doctors are not infallible, unlike ספר הרפואות which was, so that reality does not fully exist today and place still remains for prayer to HKB”H.
The Rambam (Mishna Pesachim 4,9) disagrees with Rashi and compares it to a starving person. The fact that he resorts to eating bread does not indicate that he lacks faith in HKB”H. According to the Rambam, Chizkiya hid the book not because people did not have bitachon in HKB”H, but because it was being used for “unsavory” purposes. The Rambam does not specify which. According to the Rambam, reliance on doctors to cure you from illness, like ספר הרפואות, is not passul, as long as you recognize that the wisdom of both originates from HKB”H and you thank Him for it. There is a פסול in believing that the only way COVID will end is if doctors or researchers find an antidote for it. However there is no פסול in believing that the only way COVID will end is if HKB”H gives the doctors and researchers the wisdom to find an antidote and thank Him (and the doctors/researchers) for it – a subtle difference.
To recap thus far - we have two diverse opinions why illness occurs:
I think we can resolve this by regarding Rashi’s opinion as a subsection of the Ramban/Rambam’s opinion. If tefilot are lacking, it is because there is a spiritual imbalance. HKB”H does not randomly make us ill just to get us to daven to Him. However, if HKB”H sees that our spirituality is not balanced, that we have forgotten Him, then He may create illness to set us back on the path of righteousness.
Getting back to our original question, what does the Torah consider more important - life or livelihood? As we have seen, the unequivocal answer is life. It is also the intuitive answer. A person struggling for breath on an ECMO machine is not really thinking about their bank balance, they are struggling to survive the next few seconds.
In reality, all those insensitive people who are willing to discard 1% of the population just to be able to maintain their sense of normalcy and routine are only willing to do - as long as they are not part of the 1%. With all the “macho” bravado and nonsense of the flippant generation who are so outspoken in their objection to interrupting their lives when only 1% of the people are dying and "they are people who are going to die anyway” because they are old or have prior medical conditions - quickly change their outlook when it is they who are connected to the ECMO machine.
Another popular “pearl of wisdom” you hear is “Me? Just because I was not wearing my mask all the way up over my nose, I caused him to die? What rubbish!” The truth is “How do you know?” Unfortunately technology has not yet advanced to the level where we can trace a specific death to the originator of the infection. Not taking all the possible measures to protect others however, including the minimum השתדלות of wearing your mask up over your nose, is equivalent to driving your car at 100km/hr in a 30km/hr zone. It is like a שור מועד. It is a terrible thought – there are a lot of killers in our midst, רוצחים ממש – but only HKB”H knows who they are because only He has the “technology” to trace an act of negligence to an actual death. A moral person will not be a שור מועד.
Each single נפש is an עולם שלם, whether that נפש is 55-years-old, or 95-years-old, or 25-years-old with a prior medical condition. We do not have the moral right to decree death on 1% just so that we can preserve our sense of normalcy – to continue to go to New Year’s Eve parties or fly to Cyprus for our annual vacation or celebrate our child’s wedding with 500 guests. How do you equate someone gasping for breath on an ECMO with someone who is devastated because aunt Hilda couldn’t come to the קבלת פנים?
If you compare our generation to the generation that lived through the Second World War, where millions died, were exterminated, were displaced from their homes, separated from their families, had their homes destroyed by bombs, etc.- to our current generation where we cannot even contemplate the “tragedy” of not being able to fly overseas to visit our family. It IS a tragedy, but not of the same scale, not even close. We are either spoilt, or along the way, we have lost some of our moral fiber and become “slaves” to a superficial existence.
In no way am I minimizing the impact this pandemic has had on our lives. It has affected our parnasa, our sanity, the psychological health of our children, our elderly parents. Most of us are somehow managing to survive in all these respects. Humans are resilient beings - we learn to adapt, to use our creativity. However there are many extreme cases where some people really don’t have food to eat ממש, where youngsters have committed suicide or strayed from the path of Yiddishkeit רחמנא לצלן.
Just as the Torah requires us to have a collective responsibility to the 1% so that they don’t die from COVID, it requires us to collectively also prevent the other percentage from “dying” (financially, mentally or spiritually) from the repercussions of preserving the life of the 1%.
The solutions exist, they are just being politicized. We are not living in normal times, however much we would like to delude ourselves that we are, in a failed attempt to preserve our sanity. In normal times we would leave our social security nest egg for our retirement. In times of emergency such as these, these funds should be recruited to supplementing our lost income – for those who have lost income and especially those who have catastrophically lost income. We should be given the choice to dig into these funds now or find some other source of income involving retraining. If we do dig into these funds, we will do so with the knowledge that we will have to replenish them at a later date when the crisis is behind us. There is no reason why entire sectors should be left without an income. Those sectors that continue to function fully, like hi-tech, can be used to keep the economy afloat. Baruch Hashem much of our economy is based on such industries. However, all the industries which have been paralyzed by the COVID, like the tourism industry, the hotel and restaurant industries, etc. should be given the choice to either dig into their retirement funds or retrain, not left to simply wilt and die as they are now. These are not government bale-outs, it is our own money that we have been faithfully putting away each month for our retirement. When someone is gasping for breath on an ECMO machine they cannot really think clearly about their mortgage interest rate. Similarly, a restaurant that is threatened with closure or a tour guide that cannot pay his food bills, is like that person gasping for breath – they cannot think about what will happen 35 years from now when they retire. They need air to breathe now, תרתי משמע.
Creative solutions can and should be found to preserve the sanity and integrity of our youth, including facilitating online conferencing solutions in Charedi frameworks, even though they operate off the internet, which is considered פסול in such circles. Emergency circumstances call for a גזירת שעה and not for climbing up trees of moralization. Solutions can be found if you try hard enough. Similarly solutions can be found for preserving the social necessities of the younger generation and the elderly who are often isolated from their friends and families.
These are all practicalities, logistics. Humans and especially Jews are creative. We have the Yiddishe kop and we can come up with the solutions if we really try, instead of deluding ourselves that this will all blow over in two months.
But it goes deeper than practicalities. We need to get down to the root cause and not simply apply band aids. We saw the root cause above, is because of an imbalance. If HKB”H wants our tefilot, it means that we are remiss in this regard. Perhaps we are remiss and not davening at all, perhaps we are remiss in not davening the right way, with enough kavana, perhaps we are not trying hard enough to daven in a minyan.
If we want to find a remedy for this pandemic, we need to look no further than our parsha, it has a two pronged formula for restoring the balance –
רַק שִׁבְתּוֹ יִתֵּן וְרַפֹּא יְרַפֵּא. (שמות כא, יט)
The first is יִתֵּן – we need to give. Despite our own individual crises we need to step beyond ourselves and help others who are in a worse situation than us and there always are. It doesn’t matter if it is with צדקה or with acts of חסד. It is not really important what the amount or type is, the עיקר is the mindset, that we are more involved in כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה and not only in our own ד' אמות. When we can show HKB”H that we all care about preserving the life of the 1% and also the other silent percent that is not dying physically but financially, psychologically and spiritually – then we will have gone a long way to restoring the balance.
The second is שִׁבְתּוֹ – each in our own way, we all need to engage in introspection and do tshuva, starting with even the smallest of small things, whether it is being more patient and respectful to our spouse, children, parents; whether it is making a bracha before and after eating that cookie on-the-go; whether it is making a concerted effort to get to shul five minutes earlier and managing to say korbanot. Each person knows what they have to work on in themselves. שִׁבְתּוֹ also refers to Shabbat. We ALL need to make more of an effort to use Shabbat to the max, to brush up on the halachot, to spend more time in shul and learning, to spend more quality time with our families, to sing more zmirot and have more divrei Torah at the table, to be makpid on Seuda Shlishit in these short winter days. Improving our Shabbat observance will go a long way to restoring the balance.
If we are able to get to the root cause of COVID and fix the imbalance, then - וְרַפֹּא יְרַפֵּא.
When Am Yisrael left Egypt they were battered and bruised, both emotionally and physically. By causing the dead bodies of the Egyptians to float up after קריעת ים סוף, HKB”H gave Am Yisrael closure and healed them from the emotional trauma of slavery. However, due to the decades of forced physical slave labor, Am Yisrael were physically maimed, in their limbs, some were blind, deaf, chronically ill. By giving them Mann and water from the Well of Miriam, וּבֵרַךְ אֶת לַחְמְךָ וְאֶת מֵימֶיךָ, HKB”H physically healed them וַהֲסִרֹתִי מַחֲלָה מִקִּרְבֶּךָ, so by the time they got to Har Sinai, they were physically whole again.
There is a Doctor in the house and it is HKB”H. He created the COVID, He can remove it in the blink of an eye - if we learn the lesson He is trying to teach us. The ישועה may be in the form of a wondrous, supernatural miracle, or it may take the form of giving some of His wisdom to בשר ודם to find a cure - which is no less miraculous. We just have to recognize the miracles and express gratitude to Who is performing them.
