Pearls of Wisdom from the Parshah
He shall surely heal. (Shemos 21:19)
How should you treat the doctor? Honor your doctor before you need his services.
We know it is a mitzvah of the Torah to honor one’s father and mother, and the Chayei Adam cites Sefer Charedim as saying that honoring one’s parents is a mitzvah that we fulfill primarily in our hearts. A person should think of his parents as being great and highly respected people. This is learned from a criticism leveled by the Navi:
“Since this people approaches Me with its mouth and lips, yet its heart is far from Me.”
From here we learn that just saying something with your mouth is not proper respect. Only respect in one’s heart is true respect. This applies not only toward Hashem but also toward one’s parents.
So if Chazal tell us to honor the doctor, the same principle should apply. We need to honor him in our hearts, because we might come to need his services, and if we don’t put our trust in him, we won’t come to him when we need to. There were many cases of people who didn’t place credence in doctors, and ended up endangering their lives.
Now let’s talk about the idea that a person should think of his parents as being great and highly respected people. What is a person supposed to do if his father is just the opposite? Does he need to twist his mind inside out?
The answer emerges from the following example. Two people are walking down the street and see someone who looks like a bum, sitting at a street corner and doing nothing. Everything about him says he has nothing going for him at all. One person whispers to the other, “You see that guy sitting over there? He has 20 million dollars in the bank!”
Now the guy sitting at the street corner looks totally different. He is viewed in a more flattering light. The new information didn’t turn the guy into a gadol batorah, but it sure did make him seem a lot more respectable than before. He is no bum at all.
So it is with honoring one’s father and mother. The very fact that they are your parents requires you to see them as people possessing great qualities and worth, because they brought you into this world and they are partners with Hakadosh Baruch Hu in creating you.
The same applies to the doctor. Chazal said to honor him. The very fact that his business involves matters of life and death, and he was a good shaliach to heal many people, and you assumedly heard that he has a good reputation – otherwise you wouldn’t go to him – this zechus and this mission from Hakadosh Baruch Hu is a very great and lofty thing, and a heavenly angel accompanies him always. Even if you happen to know some uncomplimentary things about him as well, you should see him as a person well worthy of honor.
Why did Chazal tell us to show him respect? Not because it is a mitzvah like honoring one’s parents is, not because it is Hashem’s true Will, but rather as good advice. Because you might find yourself in need of his services, and if you think the doc is no good, you might endanger yourself by failing to seek medical assistance.
Nowadays, when you go to the family doctor, the most common treatment they prescribe is antibiotics. There are people who are against antibiotics and claim it does harm to the body. This brings them to disrespect doctors in general and regard them as if they don’t really help us.
This is the wrong approach.
Come and see how the way of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not like the way of human beings.
The way of human beings is that when he prescribes a medication to a person, it is good for this and bad for that. But it is not so with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He gave the Torah to Yisrael, and it is a medicine of life for the entire body, as it says ולכל בשרו מרפא – “It is healing for all his flesh.”
What does it mean that “it is good for this and bad for that”? Rashi explains that it is good for the eyes and bad for the heart. Based on this, the Brisker Rov would say, A refuah vas shat nisht, helft nisht – “A medical treatment that doesn’t hurt, doesn’t help.” Such is the nature of healing performed by human beings. It helps for one thing even though it is bad for something else.
So it doesn’t mean that today’s doctors don’t know what they are doing and can’t help a person get better. It’s rather because such is the nature of human healing as Hashem created it. Nothing is purely beneficial with no negative side effects. On the contrary, if the medicine has a certain negative effect, this is a sign that it is a good medicine that really does something.
There’s another big complaint that people have against modern doctors. In olden times, doctors would mainly analyze a case mentally and think about it, whereas today, everything is technical and mechanical. You don’t see doctors nowadays sitting there and mentally thinking over the case, like you see talmidei chacham sitting in the beis midrash and thinking through the sugya. Thus, people claim that there isn’t much wisdom in modern medicine, because you can’t attain wisdom without thinking deeply, which doctors don’t do.
This, too, is a mistake. You could lodge the same complaint against today’s Torah sages. Why don’t we have towering Gedolei Torah of the type that used to be? It’s actually the fault of the talmidim, not the rebbeim. The Shechinah comes to rest upon the prophets and the sages only when the Jewish people are worthy of it.
The same is true in the outside world. This is a generation where nobody thinks. People behave like machines, without heads and without hearts. So the same is true of their “wise men,” the doctors. It’s not because the doctors are dummies; it’s because that’s the way our whole generation is. It’s our fault. We get the doctors that are fitting to us. There is a principle that you have only the Torah sage who lives in your age. Lehavdil, you have only the doctor who lives in your age, and he has Hashem’s permission to practice healing.
Although we should respect doctors, there is another halachah about respect that we should know:
Every person should always be in your eyes as if he is a robber, but you should respect him as you would Rabban Gamliel.
“Respect him as you would Rabban Gamliel” means in your heart, as we explained, and that does not contradict suspecting him “as if he is a robber.”
