As the followers of the world’s first monotheistic religion, the Israelites placed resolute emphasis on God’s omnipotence, especially within the domain of healing. The descendants of ancient Israel continued to observe Hebrew law and tradition, but refined their interpretations of Israelite beliefs to reflect advancements in scientific knowledge. As such, the Jewish conception of who wielded the power to heal evolved over the course of antiquity. While God remained the patron of healing throughout Jewish history, Jewish medical practices were influenced by their larger sociocultural context, driving the transformation of the Rophe in Jewish ideology. Between the epoch of the Hebrew Bible and rise of Rabbinic Judaism, the power of healing transferred from God to man in Jewish tradition.
“For I God am your healer:” Healing in Ancient Israel
Ancient Israel pioneered monotheistic belief and thus believed that God controlled everything–from the body to health and disease. As such, the work of a physician transcended the role of man, and only God held the authority to heal. The Book of Exodus asserts God’s authority to heal,“for I God am your healer” (Exodus 15:26). During biblical times, when people became ill they prayed to God. There are numerous examples of the use of prayer for healing in the Hebrew Bible. Abraham prayed to God to return the fertility of Abimelech and his wife, “and God healed” (Genesis 20:17). Rachel prayed to God to help her conceive a child (Genesis 30:22). Moses prayed to God to cure Miriam’s leprosy (Numbers 12:13). During times of hardship, the People of Israel turned to God, and God healed.
While health practitioners frequently liaised between God and the natural world to perform healing miracles, these healers were not seen as doctors. Only devout followers of God were able to channel divine healing powers. In one example of this biblical motif, the prophet Isaiah cured King Hezekiah. Hezekiah prayed to God to resolve his deadly sickness, and God communicated to Isaiah to, “Go and tell Hezekiah: Thus said God..I have heard your prayer…take a cake of figs and apply it to the rash, and he will recover” (Isaiah 38:5-21). By delivering God’s message and providing Hezekiah with the prescribed recipe, Isaiah was not acting as a physician, but rather as an agent of God. Comparably, the prophet Elijah called upon God to heal a young boy and “God heard Elijah’s plea; the child’s life returned to his body, and he revived” (I Kings 17:22). Although humans facilitated the healing process in these incidents, God was the ultimate source of healing, delivering recovery through prophets.
Early Jewish Medical Scholars
In the period of early Judaism, we begin to see a shift in the perception of who has the authority to heal. The Book of Sirach is an apocryphal book of wisdom written by the Jerusalemite sage Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira. Ben Sira lived during the Second Temple Period, when Hellenism had a stronghold over the land of Judea. It is important to mention his work as part of the timeline in devising the Jewish healer because it was the first Jewish piece to outright praise physicians and is referenced in rabbinic medical discourse. In the book’s poem, “Praise of the Physicians,“ Ben Sira endorses the physician as a legitimate and valuable asset. The Book of Sirach shares common medical ideals with the Greek Hippocratic Corpus, including eating in moderation and the acquisition of medical knowledge through experience. While Ben Sira derives his positive outlook toward physicians from his Hellenistic environment, he maintains the Jewish belief that God is at the core of their skill. Ben Sira writes, “Honor a physician…from God a physician getteth wisdom” (Sir 38:1-2). Similarly, Philo Judaeus, a Torah scholar who came a century after Ben Sira, projected Hellenistic norms in his medical works. Philo Judeaus believed that physicians played an important role in healing, but that faith in God was ultimately vital to good health.
For Ben Sira, Philo Judaeus, and later Talmudic rabbis, physicians were helpers of God. These wise Jewish men married societal advancements in medical knowledge with their uniquely Jewish perspectives, producing Greek-infused Jewish medicine that inspired later generations of rabbinic thinkers.
The Practice of Medicine in Rabbinic Judaism
The Babylonian Talmud is one of the largest reservoirs of Jewish medical knowledge. Rabbinic medical expertise was cultivated in the Hellenistic milieu of late antiquity, thereby inclining the transition of healing authority from God to man in Judaism. In response to the regional medical revolution, Rabbinic Jewish laws drew from biblical doctrine to justify the evolving practice of medicine. Rabbis re-examined biblical texts to find new meanings in order to grant physicians the authority to heal. Rabbi Abaye advises, “it was taught…that from the verse, ‘And shall cause him to be thoroughly healed’ (Exodus 21:19), from here we derive that permission is granted to a doctor to heal. The practice of medicine is in accordance with the will of God” (Berakhot 60a:29). The Book of Exodus, which only a few chapters prior had proclaimed God as the sole healer, provides rabbinic rationale for the work of doctors. Halakhah decrees, “The Torah has granted the physician permission to heal” (Yoreh Deah 336:1). Even further, the Gemara commands one to heal another, quoting the Book of Exodus, “verappo yerappe,” meaning “he shall cause him to be thoroughly healed” (Bava Kamma 85a:11). Halakhah further defends the role of the physician by citing healing as a religious obligation to save human life.
By invoking the Torah, the foundational Jewish scripture, as justification for the legal approval of doctors in the Halakhah, the Rabbis make the ultimate declaration of the acceptance of the physician as a legitimate healer in Jewish society. This transition was likely influenced by the greater Hellenistic cultural climate. Although the Rabbis were skeptical of foreign ideologies, they frequently welcomed empirical science. Accordingly, the success of Hellenistic physicians informed the rabbinic progression toward physician-based medicine. Given that the Jewish Code of Law guides religious and social practice for most Jewish communities across the globe, this ideological shift solidified the role of man as healer in Jewish tradition.
In Summary…
The acceptance of the physician is foreshadowed in some ancient Hebrew texts, expanded on by early Jewish scholars, and defined by rabbinic laws. Across these eras, God was seen emphatically as the ultimate healer, but the ways in which humans assumed the role of physician evolved throughout time and culture. Precisely, the God of the ancient Israelites had absolute authority over health and healing, while later Judaism molded to its sociocultural environment and designated the practice of healing to medical experts. While there are moments in the Hebrew Bible when man mediates between God and the sick to perform healing miracles, these stories further allude to God’s healing abilities by projecting man as a vehicle for divine power. This concept evolved to justify the work of doctors throughout the course of Jewish history, as early Jewish thinkers employed the notion that God grants physicians with wisdom. The rabbinic period integrated biblical ideas with Hellenistic science to endorse the work of a physician, blending man-made medicine with theological discussion. The transition of healing powers from God to man was inspired by the surrounding medical revolution and permitted by rabbinic interpretation of Hebrew Scripture, granting the physician a valuable place in Jewish tradition…
And in the hearts of our Jewish mothers <3
Cover Image by Sean Wallis via Flickr
