Question: What is Ha-Rav's opinion regarding vaccinating
against measles?
Answer: That is not a question for rabbis. Rabbis are not
physicians. Obviously, you can have a
Rabbi who is a physician, because he studied medicine in university, but he
didn’t study medicine in yeshiva. There, he learned Torah. We greatly admire
physicians, for they do holy work, as Rambam said in his Shemoneh Perakim. All
the same, however, rabbis are not physicians, but engage in a different holy
work. They don’t deal with curing the body, but with curing the soul, which is
more lofty than the body. Therefore, regarding medical matters, please turn to
physicians. As the Torah states, “He must provide for his complete cure”
(Shemot 21:19), regarding which our Sages commented, “Here we derive the
permission that physicians have to cure people.” The Ba’al Ha-Tanya wrote that
“only the prophets had additional knowledge regarding various matters such as
[medicine and economics]… but now there are no more prophets, and even great
Torah scholars like the scholars of the Mishnah and Talmud do not understand medical
or economic matters, or the like” (Igeret Ha-Kodesh 22).
The rule is this: Rabbis don’t deal with medicine or
economics or the army. Yet they do deal with medical ethics, business ethics
and death in battle. Therefore, there is a place for responding to five medical
arguments from the sphere of halachah.
Argument 1: There are, indeed, physicians who are in favor of
the vaccination, but others are against. So how can we know what to do? Perhaps
everyone should choose based on what seems best to him? And if so, it would be
better not to be vaccinated, because a “shev ve’al ta’aseh”, sitting and doing
nothing when faced with an uncertain risk, is best.
Answer: Just as in a disagreement between rabbis we follow
the majority, so, too, in a disagreement between physicians. For example, if
there are physicians who say a patient should violate the Sabbath or should eat
on Yom Kippur, and others say he should not, the Shulchan Aruch rules that we
must follow the majority. In our own case, it is not a majority against a
minority, but almost all of them against a few individuals, a hundred to one in
favor of the vaccine. Moreover, it is not just physicians in Israel, but also
in Europe, America and in the World Health Organization.
Argument 2: I heard that the vaccinations against flu are
dangerous, and that in the past, dozens of people were hurt by severe side
effects.
Answer: That is true, but on the other hand tens of millions
have been vaccinated and nothing happened to them, and they were saved from
danger of death. Here as well, according to Halachah, we follow the majority.
Here, it’s no longer a majority of a thousand to one, but of a million to one.
Moreover, since then more than thirty years have passed, and
the medical field has amassed much experience as far as vaccinating against
flu. As far as the swine flu vaccination, no problem has been identified so
far. By contrast, many people have died from this flu, including here in
Israel, where several dozen have died. In any event, we follow the majority and
don’t lead our lives based on the exceptions.
Argument 3: If someone is healthy right now, why should he,
by his own actions, place himself in danger – however remote – just to save
himself from a danger that does not exist at this moment, and perhaps will not
exist in the future?
Answer: First of all, we said that this vaccination does not
pose a remote danger but a danger that is considered halachically negligible.
Yet the crux of the matter is that Argument 3 does not relate specifically to
the vaccination against swine flu, but to any vaccination. For that matter,
arguments 1 and 2 relate as well to all vaccinations. Thus, Rabbi Yisrael
Lipschitz, the author of Tiferet Yisrael on the Mishnah, has already dealt with
this as it refers to Mishnah Yoma chap. 8 #3, regarding the vaccination against
the Black Plague. He proved from several Talmudic sources that a person is
allowed, by his own actions, to place himself in low-level danger of 1/1000 in
order to save himself, in the future, from a high danger. As noted above, swine
flu poses a serious danger. Therefore, those groups marked by the physicians as
meant to receive the vaccination should not relate to it lightly.
Argument 4: G-d made man’s body healthy and strong, and man
has the strength to overcome all sorts of illnesses alone, on condition that he
is healthy and does not have to introduce all sorts of artificial substances
into his body from the outside. Man has surprising vibrancy and he can overcome
anything.
Answer: Obviously, this claim already goes beyond any
complaint against swine flu vaccinations, or vaccinations in general, and
confronts modern medicine. It brings us back to “Vitalistic Medicine”, which
built its foundations on faith in an omnipotent, vital force found in the body.
In effect, it turns us back to Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician. We owe
him a lot, and he is considered, in some sense, the father of medicine, because
until his time, physicians tried to heal patients by way of witchcraft,
imprecations and other pagan nonsense. Unfortunately, many similar
superstitions still survive in our day. Hippocrates said that we have to cure
the body from within the body itself, by way of the processes taking place
within it. Indeed, he deserves our kudos, but since then, a lot has happened.
Much has been discovered.
Especially, a hundred years ago, it was discovered that
bacteria are responsible for illness, and against them we use vaccinations and
antibiotics.
Obviously, he also spoke about the need, in general, to
strengthen the body, and in our own case, to be as hygienic as possible,
washing one’s hands, etc., but sometimes, specific treatment is required.
In any event, we are presently faced with choosing between
new medicine and old medicine. According to Halachah, we have to follow the
physician of our own day, just as we do the Torah luminary of our day, as it
says, “You shall approach the judge who will be there in your own time”
(Devarim 17:9).
You shouldn’t say that the sages of yesteryear were greater.
Certainly they were greater, and “if the early ones were like angels, then we
are like people, and if the early ones were like people, then we are like
donkeys” (Avot) – and we are not like the donkey of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair
[which refused to work on the Sabbath]. All the same, the Halachah follows the
more recent sages, because they knew what other early Sages said, and they saw
other arguments, and in their intense reverence they decided what they decided.
All the more so that this applies regarding medicine, for
medicine develops.
Many things in medicine have been proven and many others have
been disproven. There are additional means of research. There are statistical
tools that allow one to distinguish between anecdotal phenomena and more
full-proof phenomena, etc., etc. The Post-Talmudic Gaonim commented on Tractate
Gittin, which contains full pages of medical advice, that one should make no
mistake – rabbis are not physicians, this medical advice is not from Mount
Sinai, but from medical sources. Hence in effect, all of that advice is null
and void, except for one piece of advice, which earned the approbation of
physicians from our own times.
Argument 5: Surely we have to believe in G-d and in divine
providence. If G-d has decreed that I should be well, then I don’t need all the
physicians. And if G-d has decreed that I will be sick, then all the physicians
won’t help. We need faith and trust in G-d, and that is what will cure us, not
going to a physician.
Answer: That’s a fine question, but Rambam has already
answered it in his commentary on Mishnayot Pesachim. There he argued that based
on the same logic we could say, “Don’t eat. If G-d has decreed that one must
die, he will die even if he eats. And if G-d has decreed that one must live, he
will live even if he does not eat. So don’t eat!
Obviously, that’s nonsense. Certainly G-d does all, but He
does it by way of His emissaries, both His destructive angels, like bacteria,
and His ministering angels, like the physicians. And if you refuse to let G-d’s
benign emissaries help you, you deserve a punishment. The punishment can be
that the ministering angels will abandon you and the destructive angels will
harm you (see Mesillat Yesharim, chap. 9 at length).
In conclusion, my friend, do what the doctors tell you and
don’t try to doctor yourself. We greatly value independent, critical thinking,
but you also need a bit of common sense and humility. It’s very nice that we
take an interest in medicine, but it’s not a normal situation for our country
to have five million physicians and five million economists, five million prime
ministers and five million rabbis and five million psychologists. No. we don’t
know everything. It’s not enough to read a popular article or to hear a
scientific radio program to understand a particular topic. You’ve got to study
for many years, with great toil.
So, my dear friends, go to the mainstream physicians who live
in your age and may you live a long life as a result.
