In our parasha, Mishpatim, the text imagines a quarrel between two men that escalates into a fight where one of them is injured. We are then told:
“If that victim gets up and walks outdoors upon a staff, the assailant shall go unpunished – except for paying for his loss of time and the cure to thoroughly heal him (verapo yerape)” (Ex. 21:19).
Rashi cites the Mechilta, which asks “Why [are these verses, 18-19] stated in this particular form? Since Scripture states (Ex. 21:24) ‘an eye for an eye,’ we learn from it only that compensation for the loss of limbs has to be paid, but we cannot infer from it that indemnity for loss of time [during which the injured has been disabled from work] and cost of medical treatment have also to be paid; consequently this section” (Rashi on Ex. 21:18, Silbermann translation).
In other words, the Torah is telling us to expand our understanding of injury and look beyond its physical aspects.
Expand our understanding of injury and look beyond the physical
In addition, Rashi comments on the phrase “heal him” (v. 19): “Translate it as the Targum [Aramaic translation of the Torah often cited] does: he shall pay the physician’s fee” (Rashi on Ex. 21:19, Silbermann translation).
Implied is that we should seek medical help from qualified doctors and nurses and follow their advice. At face value, this seems so obvious that it does not need to be stated. However, all we have to do is reflect on these past COVID years and the number of people who refused to listen to medical professionals and did not get vaccinated, and we can add to that chorus the general anti-vaxxers.
Within these groups there are those who base their position on a particular belief in God. In a fascinating study, “‘God will protect us’: Belief in God/Higher Power’s ability to intervene and COVID-19 vaccine uptake,” we read:
“We find that belief in God or a higher power’s ability to intervene in the world is consistently negatively related to COVID-19 vaccine uptake and intent to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.... Current and future public health interventions would benefit from considering how to best create vaccination campaigns that speak to people who believe that God or a higher power will protect and heal them”(DiGregorio, Corcoran and Scheitle).
The Talmud is very clear when it comes to seeking medical attention, based on the verse from this week’s parasha: “As it is taught in the school of Rabbi Yishmael: ‘To thoroughly heal him’; from here that permission is granted to a doctor to heal” (Bava Kamma 85a).
“As it is taught in the school of Rabbi Yishmael: ‘To thoroughly heal him’; from here that permission is granted to a doctor to heal”
Bava Kamma 85a
But some might say this counters the belief expressed earlier in the Book of Exodus and other statements in the Bible: “...for I the Lord am your Healer” (Ex. 15:26); “I will remove illness from your midst” (Ex. 23:25); “Please, God, please heal her” (Num. 12:13); “I will restore health to you and I will heal you of your wounds” (Jer. 30:17); “O Lord, my God, I cried to you and you have healed me” (Ps. 30:3).
The following midrash answers that belief:
“Once when Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva were walking in the outskirts of Jerusalem, a sick man confronted them. He said, ‘My masters, tell me how I can be cured.’ They said to him, ‘Take these medicines until you are cured.’ He said to them, ‘But who brought this disease upon me?’ They said to him, ‘The Holy One, blessed be God.’ He said to them, ‘And you have stuck your head into a matter not your own. God struck, and you dare to heal? Are you not violating God’s will?’ They said to him, ‘What is your occupation?’ He said to them, ‘I till the soil. Here is my sickle.’ They said to him, ‘And who created the field and the vineyard?’ He said to them, ‘The Holy One, blessed be God!’ They said to him, ‘And you stick your head into something that does not concern you? He has created the field, and you pick its fruits?’ He said to them, ‘Don’t you see the sickle in my hand? If I would not plow and clear and fertilize the field, it would not bring forth anything.’ They said to him, ‘Just as the tree will die if you don’t weed and fertilize the field, so also the human body. Medicines can be compared to weeding and fertilizing, and the physician is like the farmer” (Midrash Shmuel, ch. 4).
It is clear through these sources and scores of others within Judaism that medical professionals and their knowledge, care and advice are part of God’s holy plan.
At the end of the day, Judaism sees our lives and our work, whatever that work may be, as a partnership with God.
When it comes to medical professionals, that becomes clear in a different passage in the Talmud. Rav Aha said that a person who has gone through a medical procedure should say: “May it be Your will, O Lord my God, that this enterprise be for healing, and that You should heal me, as You are a faithful God of healing, and Your healing is truth. Because it is not the way of people to heal, but they have become accustomed” (Brachot 60a).
Implied in what he is saying is that doctors and other medical professionals do not have the expertise to heal; only God can do that. To which Abaye counters (ibid.), making the point again from our line in this week’s parasha, “to thoroughly heal him,” (Ex 21:19) that “permission is given to the physician to heal.” Not wanting to completely abandon his position, Rav Aha says that after a medical procedure, one says: “Blessed is the gratuitous Healer” (Brachot 60a).
While Rav Aha takes a dim view of human healing, this bracha/blessing that he suggests after a medical procedure by a medical professional hints at a partnership, if you will, between the doctor or nurse and God. He never says that we should not go to a medical professional; rather, he wants God acknowledged through the work of the medical professionals.
From the verse “Observe my laws and my judgments, which, if a person does, he shall live through them” (Lev. 18:5), Sefer Isur V’heter (chap. 60, end) derives that it is a mitzvah to maintain bodily health.
Laws and judgments here can be understood as the structure and dynamics of how the world was created and so operates. Our task is to try to do our best, through education, to understand how the world, created by God, is so constructed so that we gain the insights needed to heal people, as well as the world itself.■
The writer, a Reconstructionist rabbi, is rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation in Manchester Center, Vermont. He teaches at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies on Kibbutz Ketura and at Bennington College.