By Rabbi
Avraham Greenbaum
From his
in-depth book, Wings of the Sun: The Torah Healing Pathway
We present
this selection from Rabbi Greenbaum’s work because it relates to the current crisis
in the Orthodox Jewish world concerning the issue of vaccination. This excerpt
is part of a larger discussion of Rebbe Nachman’s largely negative view of the
medical world of his day.
It is undeniable that
medical knowledge and expertise have expanded explosively since the end of the
18th century, and they continue to grow. Given that Rebbe Nachman’s critique of
doctors is largely founded on their lack of understanding of the workings of
the body, it is fair to ask whether his polemic was directed primarily against
the primitive medicine of his time or whether it would still apply today.
Nowhere in Rebbe Nachman’s
writings is there an explicit statement indicating that his warnings against
doctors were restricted to his own time and place and would not apply if
medical knowledge were to advance significantly. In fact, we see that Rebbe
Nachman took a skeptical view of the growth of medical knowledge: “He said that
there has already been so much research into medicine that the experts now know
absolutely nothing, because after so much research they see that it is
impossible to establish the truth” (Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom #50).
It is significant that although Rebbe Nachman had always advised his followers
to avoid doctors, his warnings became stronger than ever after his trip to
Lemberg, whose Austrian-trained doctors were then among the most advanced
in Europe.
On the other hand, there
is one statement by Rebbe Nachman that places all his warnings against doctors
into a very different light –a statement that provides a basis for those who
wish to argue that his warnings simply do not apply to contemporary medicine.
This is his statement urging his followers to have their children vaccinated
against smallpox. This disfiguring and often fatal disease was then prevalent
throughout Europe and Asia. A primitive form of inoculation had
been in use for some time in Turkey, and spread to the rest
of Europe in the 1720’s. However, it was not without its dangers, and
the best that most people could do when there was an outbreak of smallpox was
to flee.
It was not until the 1790’s
that the English country physician Edward Jenner observed that those who had
been infected with cowpox did not become infected with smallpox. In 1796 he
performed the first vaccination on a young boy, and found that, despite the boy’s
subsequent exposure to smallpox, he did not become infected. Knowledge of the
new technique spread rapidly throughout Europe, and immunization against
smallpox soon became a standard medical procedure. At first it was a subject of
heated controversy within the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, but in
1804 a Dr. Shimon of Cracow printed a broadsheet entitled “A New
Remedy,” in which he encouraged all Jews to have their children vaccinated as a
preventive measure. Within a short time, hundreds of Jewish children were being
successfully vaccinated, including those of leading rabbis and Torah
scholars (Sefer HaBrit I, 17:2).
In the midst of this
controversy, Rebbe Nachman came out in favor of vaccination in the strongest
terms:
“Every parent should have
his children vaccinated within the first three months of life. Failure to do so
is tantamount to murder. Even if they live far from the city and have to travel
during the great winter cold, they should have the child vaccinated before
three months” (Avaneha Barzel p.31 #34).
Rebbe Nachman’s
championship of vaccination is clear proof that his opposition to doctors and
medicine was in no way bound up with some kind of retrogressive attitude of
suspicion towards modernity and innovation per se. Here was a
newly-discovered technique with a proven power to prevent a dangerous disease,
and within a matter of a few years Rebbe Nachman came out emphatically in
favor—Jenner first discovered vaccination in 1796, and Rebbe Nachman’s
(undated) statement must have been made some time before his death in 1810.
Strictly speaking,
vaccination is not so much a remedy as a preventive measure. Rebbe Nachman’s
powerful endorsement seems to imply that he would have been no less in favor of
tried and tested measures for preventing other diseases –unlike the Ramban, who
says that “when the Jewish People are in a state of spiritual perfection...
they have no need of medical procedures even as precautionary measures.” As we
will see later, Rebbe Nachman himself saw his healing pathway of faith and
prayer as the most powerful form of preventive medicine. Nevertheless, from his
endorsement of vaccination, we can infer that Rebbe Nachman would not have been
opposed to actual preventive medical techniques where they had proven their
effectiveness.
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