The Healers

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Incessantly, both Jews and Gentiles have expressed wonderment why it is that, in proportion to the general population, there are not only many more Jewish doctors than non-Jewish practitioners, but that, in many instances, they also seem to show a marked affinity for their professions ... Why have an astonishing number of Jewish doctors distinguished themselves as clinicians and medical scientists? ... It's a good question, and deserves a good answer. The encyclopedic German scientist Virchow, a non-Jew, said to the International Medical Congress in Rome in 1894:

In early medieval times, it was the Jews and the Arabs who together, made a definite impression upon the progress of medical science. In modern times, Hebrew manuscripts have been brought to light which show with what zeal and learning Jewish physicians of early medieval times were active in this preservation and advancement of medicine. Rightfully ... we may say that down to these times, there can often be discerned this hereditary talent of the Jews ... which has certainly contributed so much that is great in (medical) science.

While noting this singular aptitude for medicine on the part of many Jews, our Virchow did not, however, attempt to furnish any clues to the causative factors behind it. His failure to do so may have been because he was not able to observe the phenomenon within the frame of reference of Jewish religious and cultural history, an area of knowledge with which he was jot entirely familiar. And now you, the reader, are privileged to know what Virchow was not privy to; sit back, get comfortable, have a drink, a sandwich, make yourself at home, and listen.

Btw, Buddy's not really this gracious in real life, but it's fun writing it this way.

It was the Italian historian of medicine, Arturo Castiglioni (1874-1953) ... aided by a knowledgeable understanding of the religious-cultural background against which the Jewish doctors emerged (since he was himself a Jew), to relate their unique dedication to the healing art. He noted in his History of Medicine:

Now what is particularly notable, and what makes the history of Jewish medicine more interesting than that of other peoples of antiquity, is that one can often observe that (medical) traditions and concepts have been absorbed and, in a way of speaking, have been filtered through the moral and legislative system of Judaism, and that a very decisive role has been exercised in this process of assimilation ... by the concept of monotheism which gives the Deity the power of healing ... As a result of this concept, Hebrew medicine differs from that of all other peoples of antiquity.

The concept of G-d as the supreme physician is proclaimed in Exodus 15:26, "for I am the L-rd that healeth the" ... and again in Deuteronomy 32:39, when G-d is speaking through Moses to the children of Israel, "I kill, and I make alive; I have wounded, and I heal."

Notwithstanding that Castiglioni's explanation, as far as it goes, is entirely correct, he somehow failed to make what might be considered the most significant point of all ... For the Jewish doctor of former centuries, beginning with post-Exilic times, when an intellectual upsurge and preoccupation with ... ethics, social ideals, charity, etc. absorbed the Jews in Judea, in Babylon, and throughout the Hellenistic world, the practice of medicine constituted an exalted from of religions worship.

And at the conclusion of the Prayer for Physicians, Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon), a philosopher, rabbi, and medical scientist, one of the great rationalistic thinkers and doctors of the Middle Ages, echoed this ancient self-dedication: "Oh G-d, thou hast appointed me to watch over the life and death of Thy creatures; here am I ready for my vocation."

In his occupational role as a doctor, it was thought and expected that he was only emulating his Creator's moral attribute ... as the Compassionate Healer of man's sorrows and afflictions. Since, according to the Jewish conception, the healing of illness came from G-d through the mediation of his "messenger," the doctor, it is not unusual that in old Jewish religious writings one will find adulatory references to the physician as "G-d's messenger."

In Jewish thinking, the angels are called "messengers of G-d," with the Archangel Raphael being honored by the Cabalists as "the messenger of healing" sent by G-d to the aid of the sick. And note the similarity between the name "Raphael' and the Hebrew word "rofeh" meaning healer, the "el" at the end being a reference to G-d. You might want to consider all the names you know that end with "el" (Daniel, Gabriel, Israel, Lemuel, Manuel, Samuel, etc.), all exemplifying some trait related to the Creator.

Thus the believing Jew who was ill, combined his hope of being cured by the art of the physician with his supplication to G-d, in whom he placed all his trust to send him healing ... "May G-d grant you a speedy and complete cure" ... in Hebrew, a refuah shelemah, the traditional parting words a Jewish visitor says as he takes leave of a sick person ... But the latter, however devout he may think himself, when making a realistic appraisal of his situation, does not fail to follow the advice of the ancient sage, Jesus ben Sirach, (200 B.C.E.) ... "If you fall ill, cry to the L-rd, but also call for the physician, for a sensible man does not neglect the remedies which the earth offers"

That there might exist a very close interconnection between the body's health and morality is amply demonstrated in the literature of the Talmud. Rabbinic doctrine of two thousand years ago did not recognize any cleavage between mind, body, and soul; all three had been wrought by the Creator and endowed with the potential of blending together into a perfect harmony, provided the individual brought his free will into play for the "mastery of his passions" and for living justly. In some respects, these sages of old seem to have anticipated that postulate of modern psychosomatic medicine which assumes that bodily illness is very frequently caused (or sharply aggravated) by emotional and psychic distress.

"There is no death without sin," concluded the Talmudic moralists. One thousand years later, in the twelfth century, Maimonides (the Rambam) elaborated on this theme by arguing that sickness of the body is brought about not only by excesses and by injurious habits (smoking, drinking, drugs, poor sleep habits, poor eating habits, unnecessary risk taking, too much *on the internet?* ... I suppose too much of anything, but also by the violation of good moral principles. ... A guilty conscience often results from abuses of the passions (such as anger, envy, hatred, and lust), thereby kindling new flares of affliction for the human being.

The Jewish doctor's medical thinking was steeped in moralistic principles. To aid the sick and to preserve life, these constituted the ultimate expression of piety; love for man was complementary to love for G-d. Therefore, to treat a very sick patient (Gentile as well as Jew) on the Sabbath was considered not only no violation of that holy day on which all work was forbidden. Quite the contrary, it was in fact, esteemed as an act of great merit. No law of humanity ever exceeded in simple nobility the formulation of this oral tradition in the Mishnah.:

Man was first created as a single individual in order to teach the lesson that, whoever destroys even one life, the Torah considers it as if he had destroyed the whole world; and (conversely) whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved the whole human race.

This tradition served as the spur for most Jewish doctors in every generation. And then in his medical "testament" written in 1559 ... the celebrated Jewish anatomist, internist, and surgeon, Amatus Lusitanus, who was physician to Pope Julius the 3rd, stated the principles that guided him in his medical practice:

I swear by the eternal G-d and by His ten most holy commandments, that I have never, at any time, done any thing in my treatments save what inviolate faith has handed down to posterity, that I have never feigned anything added anything, have never changed anything for the sake of gain; that I have always striven after this one thing; namely ... that benefit might spread forth to mankind, that all men have been considered equal by me of whatever religion they were, whether Jews, Christians or Muhammadins.

The humanitarian dedication of the Jewish doctor was consistently in harmony with the close-knit Jewish group life, which was distinguished by a climate of moral and religious aspiration. Therefore it is of no coincidental significance that a number of the Rabbinic Sages during the Talmudic age were also physicians. The inference is quite clear: Health and hygiene were both revered as integral departments of the religious life; since the body was the soul's tenement of flesh and blood, it was the religious obligation of the human being to keep it in a state of health, moral purity, and cleanliness.

What distinguished the Jewish doctor from other doctors? One could say that his role was the counterpart of the Egyptian priest-doctor who was in the temple service of the god-doctor Imhotep and the priest-doctor who was attached to the Roman temple of the god of healing, Aesculapius. But one quality distinguished the Jewish doctor from his Gentile contemporaries. Whereas their cultivation of the art of healing was usually not related to any ethical goal but was, in addition, motivated by ritualistic and magical functions as priests, the Jewish doctor was moved principally by the compassionate desire to alleviate suffering and to preserve human life, which he had been taught by his religion to revere as holy.

Notwithstanding their "pure intention," both the ancient Rabbinic and medieval doctors often became entangled in the thick brush and brambles of superstition and primitivism, features which also characterized the medical practice of the latter-day Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and, until the late Renaissance, that of the Christians, as well. The Talmud, although it contains sound observations, and advice on a variety of ailments, also revels in some of the aberrations of what was then folk-medicine and "old wives" cures, and therefore gave respectful attention to homeopathic magic and incantations.

What especially aroused and annoyed some of the more advanced Rabbinical thinkers was the debasement of the Torah by reciting passages from it so as to effect miraculous cures. Therefore, the Jews were sternly admonished, "It is forbidden to cure oneself by means of scriptural citation" ... thus removing the practice from that of magic, to that of the best learning available at that time.

The religious-moralistic orientation to medicine among the Jews may be seen in the fact that, beginning about the year 1000, and continuing through the Middle Ages, medical and even pharmacological studies were included in the curriculums of the rabbinical seminaries of Spain, Italy, and North Africa. More than half the rabbis during that period were, at one and the same time, also medical practitioners.

Although it is true that the medical schools gave some training to their students in medical theory, it was actually as apprentices to individual Jewish doctors that they acquired their clinical skill. And inasmuch as the physician's calling was very often hereditary, so to speak, "kept in the family" ... a father would teach all he knew to his son who assisted him in attending the sick.

The social ideals of professional practice also would be handed down like a precious inheritance from father to son. In the "ethical testament" which he addressed to his young doctor-son, Rabbi Judah ibn Tibbon, the noted doctor, humanist, scholar, and translator, of the 12th century counseled, "You may accept fees from the rich, but heal the poor without charge" ... And this was in the usual pattern of benevolent concern for the sick poor most Jewish doctors have demonstrated ... possibly to a more marked degree than did Christian physicians, and who were also raised in the humanitarian climate of the healing art. No doubt it was a concomitant of the Jewish religious-ethical culture pattern which was applied to every aspect of the Jewish life and activity, in greater or lesser measure.

The purest and most exalted expression of the Jewish doctor's dedication to his calling as healer was given by Maimonides (Rambam) more than eight centuries ago in the private prayer he composed:

Endow me with strength of heart and mind so that both may be ready to serve the rich and the poor, the good and the wicked, friend and enemy, and that I may never see in the patient anything else but a fellow human being in pain.

That there were also charlatans, incompetents, and money-grubbers among the Jewish doctors (and Gentile), goes without saying. But they were scorned by their fellow practitioners and lampooned in derisive verse by the Hebrew satirists of the Middle Ages ... And the Renaissance. In fact, even the Talmud records some barbed observations about some of the medical practitioners. Just the same, the Jewish doctor was most frequently a dedicated man, attending the sick and trying to alleviate pain as "a service to the L-rd" and in fulfillment of the commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

There is one explanation for the assumption of the physician's calling by the rabbi of former days: It had become a tradition, sacrosanct since the earliest Rabbinic times, when the Temple still crowned the summit of Mount Zion, that no Jew make "a spade of the Torah." To the rabbi-scholar, this meant that he was forbidden to derive any material gain from his ministry. So it seems piety required him to teach, preach, adjudicate, and/or conduct any of the various rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion without fee or salary.

But economic necessity bore down on the dedicated rabbi ... The healer's calling with its labors of brotherly love and compassion for the afflicted, and the rabbi's pre-conditioning intellectual capacity and training for mastering its intricacies, all seemed like the ideal solution to his problem. Besides the religious and humanitarian appeal that the medical calling had for the pious Jew, to many, perhaps less devout, it also beckoned with prospects of material reward and of achieving a dignified and super status in a Gentile society despising Jews and treating them like pariahs.

Until late medieval times, when qualified Christian doctors began to be graduated in considerable numbers from the medical colleges of Salerno, Montpellier, Rome, Bari, Tarentum, and Palermo (institutions which many illustrious Jewish physicians helped found and in which they taught) Jewish doctors virtually held a monopoly in all fields of European medicine: its practice, teaching, experimenting, and writing.

Even in catastrophic times for the Jews (and that was throughout their history), Jewish physicians attached to the courts of emperor and caliph, pope and king, archbishop and prince were accorded special protection and they enjoyed many privileges denied to their co-religionists. They were even excused from the harsh obligation of wearing the humiliating yellow badge of Jewish identity ... (it did not start with the Nazi "house painter" of modern times), and the ridiculous sugarloaf Judenhut (Jew's hat) and they were also exempted from paying the multitude of special "Jew's taxes" (the position of the Jews in feudal times was always that of supporting the Gentile leaders and the marauding mobs).

Quite obviously, wherever the interest of a ruler was best served, his prejudices were discarded by employing the elastic yardstick of exceptionalism (the "house painter" made no exceptions, and with some poor decisions, thank G-d, he lost the war). It is ironic that even under the hammering insistence of the Grand Inquisitor Tomas Torquemada and the Holy Office in Spain ... our Queen Isabella fought hard, although in vain ... (as the time grew near for driving out more than a million Jews from her realm in 1492), to keep her Jewish doctors ... it's called self interest.

If I might digress, I should like to observe, as was once pointed out to me by Rabbi Avigdor Miller, that it is ironic that the Jews marching out of Spain, and passing the piers, were witness to three small ships leaving the harbor, and on their way to discovering a land that eventually was to become the home of the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, the hand of G-d, yad haShem, sure works in mysterious ways.

There is little doubt but that the Jewish doctors ... standing close to the seat of authority in Mohammedan and Christian lands and often doubling as royal diplomats and ministers (as viziers, treasurers, tax-farmers, etc.) would sometimes try to defend their fellow Jews against the decrees and plots to suppress, rob, expel, or exterminate them. Their constant intercessions, regardless of whether they were successful or not, brought them the heartfelt gratitude of the Jewish community.

Whether the Jewish doctor was a rabbi or a layman, the very humanitarian nature of his services and of his potential influence made of him a revered figure among the Jews. The religious-ethical tradition of the healing art, coupled so often with the honorable, and also honored, professional career ... (which could also be fairly lucrative), made medical practice one of the mast attractive and glamorous of all callings for Jews.

For the doctor's achievements combine altruism with practicality, constructive social service for the patient with high social status for himself. And, in the final analysis, it also provides him with a good life ... And for a Jewish girl "to marry a doctor" ... love and romance aside ... is usually prized both by her and her parents as a stroke of sound judgment as well as of great good fortune, so deeply rooted is the doctor-reverence in Jewish life. This may help to explain why so many young Jews of our day strive so hard to become doctors. What we are talking about here might be explained by these words of Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael (Steinsaltz):

"Each particular spark, each individual soul, is unique and special, in terms of its essence, its capacity, and what is demanded of it. No two souls coincide in their actions, their functions, and their paths. No one should can take the place of another, and even the greatest of the great cannot fill the special role, the particular place, of another that may be the smallest of the small. From this notion, incidentally, derives Judaism's profound respect for human life. The life of a person is something that has no possible substitute or exchange; nothing and no one can take its place."

This requires an explanation. In our world, the pharmaceutical companies fashion medicines, and when we are ill we go to the doctor. So how is it that we say G-d creates the healing? Rav Avigdor Miller zt"l explains it in the following ways:

1. G-d enables man to conceive and produce the medicine / cure.
2. G-d has produced the basic ingredients that are used to produce the medicine.
3. G-d has created our bodies so that they may heal if treated correctly.

Remember – Not every medicine works for every patient. It is only through the grace of Hashem when the medicine heals the illness.