Beyond Nature
Most people believe that a natural intermediary determines their income or their health, such as their business or their doctor. Livelihood and health both defy natural law.
Translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody
Refua, Part 2
The Tikkunei Zohar teaches us (P’tach Eliahu, Introduction section 17) that Hashem runs the world in accordance with our actions. Hashem created the world in order to show us his magnitude, and can operate the world mercifully or in exacting stringency according to our actions. When people behave in an upright manner, then the world is a place of harmony and loving-kindness. On the other hand, injustice, immorality, and cruelty invoke stern judgments and calamity. This is Hashem’s “measure for measure” mode of running the world.
Sickness is directly rooted in a person’s misdeeds. Consequently, medicine and medical professionals – as advanced and as skillful as they might be – cannot possibly take into consideration such Divine considerations as the patient’s spiritual debits and merits, his efforts to atone and improve, and so forth. No professional – as talented as he or she may be – can override a Divine decree. If Hashem decrees that a person should be sick for a week, then no treatment in the world will help him get well any faster. The opposite holds true as well – if Hashem decrees that a person shall recuperate – despite all medical logic – then that person will get well immediately.
Imagine two identical twins that grew up together in the same home with the same parents, ate the same food, and so on. Maybe when they were small, they appeared to be equally healthy. But, as they grew older, each had his own separate health problems. This is proof that one’s health is not determined by nature, but by one’s actions. If nature were the determining factor, then both twins who were born and raised in identical circumstances should have had identical health profiles.
Miracles and Wonders
The principle that nature plays no role in human healing becomes even more apparent when we see that as soon as a person corrects the spiritual cause of his or her ailment, the ailment disappears without any natural intervention at all. If nature governed healing, then the sick person should have continued to suffer despite whatever efforts at teshuva that he or she made. And, in the cases where seemingly irreversible damage had been caused, nothing should have helped!
Since nature does not dictate health, and we see with our own eyes that people who have earnestly repented have miraculously recovered even from terminal ailments, we can conclude that health and healing defy natural laws [1].
I have witnessed this principle in action countless times. In hundreds of cases where I instructed sick people how to rectify the misdeeds that led to the sickness, they were blessed with dramatic improvements in their health as soon as they did teshuva and bettered their ways. Even in my own personal experience, I’ve saw how my own health problems were solved as soon as I realized what I was supposed to rectify.
I’ll share with you one of my own personal experience. Once on Shabbat, I suffered from a massive toothache. My entire jaw was swollen and infected – the pain was excruciating. I told my family that I must do an immediate root treatment[2].
My family was astonished. “Since when is one allowed to go to the dentist on Shabbat?”
“But I must do a root treatment,” I answered. “The pain is unbearable and it’s no mitzvah to suffer on Shabbat. I’m going to the greatest of physicians for a root treatment – to Hashem, blessed be His Name.”
I went to a nearby field and asked Hashem to enlighten me as to the spiritual root of my ailments, in other words, to show me what I did wrong to deserve the toothache, the infection, and the resulting swelling. I did some serious soul-searching until I laid a finger on something I shouldn’t have done. I asked forgiveness for this misdeed and made complete teshuva the best I could. Within a few minutes, the swelling went down and the pain disappeared, with no antibiotics or any other natural explanation. I realized that the toothache was only a wake-up call, and as soon as I rectified my actions, Hashem no longer needed the wake-up call.
There is no nature!
Our encouragement to the sick is don’t despair – there is no nature! Whoever chooses the option of teshuva and prayer will see major miracles, beyond the limitations of nature. When The Creator decides to cure someone, He doesn’t need any help.Rebbe Nachman of Breslev teaches (Likutei Moharan I:62), “The principle misconception of those who are far away from emuna in Hashem is that they visibly see a world governed by the stars. Each person has his own misconception: some think the world is governed by nature, and that the world behaves according to natural law. Others believe that there is a Creator, but that they must worship an intermediary, such as the mistake of the golden calf.
“Many are ensnared in the trap of the intermediary, in other words, they believe in Hashem but they also believe that the intermediary determines their fate, such as their business or livelihood. They then invest their hopes and main efforts to their business dealings, since they believe that their business dealings determine their livelihood, and without their business dealings, Hashem won’t be able to provide for them, G-d forbid. The same goes for medical matters, when they put their faith in the intermediary rather than in Hashem, as if, G-d forbid, Hashem won’t be able to cure them without doctors and medicines.
This is not so! Hashem is the cause of all causes and the reason of all reasons. One must believe in Hashem only, and not in any intermediary or other cause.”
To be continued.
[1] Even though health defies nature, the Torah commands us to make every effort to care for our health. This includes proper diet, exercise, and avoiding substance intake such as tobacco and alcohol. Jewish religious law’s health statutes may be found in the Rambam, Hilchot Deot.
[2] “Root treatment” is the Israeli way of saying “root canal” treatment. The author meant it as a play on words, alluding to the core solution to his problem and not to the dental treatment.
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