When it comes to anything related to a person’s needs, Rabbenu Bachyai teaches a fundamental rule in the beginning of chapter 4 of Shaar Habitachon: “The Creator’s relationship to a person, regarding all [his needs], is absolute: No created being can decide or control anything without His express permission and decree.”
The best example that displays this is in the medical field. When the Creator of refuos decrees that His creation will not feel well, chas v’shalom, the ill person has permission to go to a doctor in order to be healed. Likewise, if someone is going through some sort of difficulty, it is appropriate and correct for him to seek advice and to do things that will lead to relief. However, we are obligated to know and believe that all the advisors and advice, all the doctors and all the medications, are only the circumstances and reasons through which the Creator brought about the healing. A person can get the best possible advice from someone who loves him and whom he trusts; if Hakadosh Baruch Hu so desires, the advice will bring about the hoped-for result, and if not, then it will not.
The same applies regarding causing harm. If someone wants to harm his friend, all his plans will not work out for him if it is not the will of Hashem yisbarach. And if they do work out, then it was Hashem’s will that the person suffer those yissurim, and the difficulties are brought about by one who is chayav – one who is, in some way, guilty.
In maseches Avodah Zarah (55a) there is a very interesting discussion regarding medical processes that people go through: A non-Jew named Zunin asked Rabi Akiva: Both you and I know that there is no substance to avodah zarah and that it is powerless. So I would like to ask, how is it that we see people whose limbs are badly injured, or they are weak with illness, and they go into a temple of avodah zarah and come out whole and healthy? How can this be explained?
Rabi Akiva answered him: I’ll give you an example. There was once a man who was considered trustworthy by all his acquaintances. People would give him their money for safekeeping without witnesses, and he would always return the deposit in full. One person came regularly to deposit money with him, but [since he did not trust the man’s honesty,] he always brought along witnesses to testify that he had given the man money. But one time he deposited money with the man without witnesses.
The trustworthy man’s wife, who was very upset that this person didn’t trust them, told her husband, “Let’s deny that he deposited the money! He did not bring witnesses this time; let us claim that he did not give us money.”
Her honest husband responded, “Just because this man does not trust us, should we ruin our own reputation for being trustworthy? We’ll give him back all his money, fairly and honestly!”
This, Rabi Akiva explained, is how it is with pain that a person experiences. Before the yissurim are sent to fulfill their mission, they take an oath in the Heavenly Beis Din that they will afflict the person on such and such day, and leave him at a certain hour [for example, through a particular doctor and a specific medication]. Now, when this sick man acts foolishly and goes into a house of avodah zarah [when the time came for his yissurim to leave him], his yissurim say: By rights, we should not leave him now. But then they reconsider and say: Because this fool is not behaving correctly, should we disregard our oath?! If we have to leave, we leave, even if it is in a house of avodah zarah.
However, there might be a situation in which the yissurim leave before their time, as it says in Nishmas: “And from many evil, trustworthy illnesses You enabled us to escape.” Even though the illness is “trustworthy” to fulfill its oath and leave only at a specific time, the Creator of remedies can also heal a person before that time, if the person understands the message and does those things that are written in the Midrash Tanchuma (Parshas Noach): “Teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah nullify the bad decree.”
Middah tovah merubah – Hashem bestows His blessings more generously. While the yissurim are commanded to come on a specific day – such as sometime between the beginning of the day and the evening, they are sworn to leave at a specific moment, which they cannot delay under any circumstances.
Regarding this, Reish Lakish quoted the passuk in Mishlei (3:34): “He will mock those who mock Him, and to the humble ones He shall show favor.”
The letz, the mocker and scorner, is someone who is not G-d-fearing, who views occurrences as chance happenings – he will see “proof” of the fact that his way is the correct one, and he will “succeed” in being healed in ways that are not kosher. He was a fool, and he remains a fool. If one chooses to act with impurity – they [in Shamayim] leave that path open to him.
On the other hand, regarding a Jew who strengthens himself in emunah and bitachon, who lives with constant hope in Hashem’s salvation, and who seeks to improve his ways, it is said, “and to the humble ones He shall show favor.” The humble one will be shown favor from Above. And he who comes to purify is helped from Above, and his healing and yeshuah are near. May it be Hashem’s will that in the merit of the constant chizuk, we are zocheh to all the yeshuos and to a kesivah vachasimah tovah; amen.
(—from shiur 85 in Shaar Habitachon. To hear the shiur, press 4 after choosing a language; or dial directly: 02-301-1904)
