I decided to speak about Judaism and Medicine since our Torah portion is steeped in the latest research in the medical field. That Cathy and JJ are in the field – dentistry is in the field – I thought it doubly important for I know that on more than one occasion – many, in fact – they have gone back to the days of our ancestors when they needed advice as to how to treat their patients. Of course, had they been dermatologists or even obstetricians it would have proven even more coincidental and relevant.     

First of all, childbirth in ancient Israel was as sexist as anything we experience to this day. Have a boy baby and the mom is chutz la-machaneh, outside the camp for one week; have a girl baby and she’s got two weeks of relative isolation.      

But the ancients must have realized that sensitivity and equality should prevail in the matter of childbirth so regardless if it was a girl or boy, mom had to bring “a sheep in its first year” as a burnt offering, and a young dove or a turtle dove as a sin offering.      

I’ve seen the script pad of my wife’s ob/gyn and a sheep was distinctly included in postpartum care.     

All these offerings are brought before the kohen, the priest of old…that’s where we find many Dr. Cohen’s in the phone book, both ob/gyns and dermatologists. Why skin doctors? Because the kohen has to check out the various skin ailments and decide if the bearer of such good tidings is pure despite the problem or not. And then, just like with childbirth, major antibiotics of the day are prescribed…and they all sound like sacrifices to me.       

When it comes to these Torah portions this rabbi can get very irreverent, and I think by now the congregants of Temple Beth El know that while I respect our sacred literature I believe it is Divinely inspired and not Divinely written. But I also believe that the entire matter of medicine throughout the ages is Divinely inspired. There are so many Jewish physicians, dentists, chiropractors, podiatrists, 99% of whom are committed to the treatment and cure of their patients. Why we have so many in those fields might in fact be traced to the days of yore, but I think it’s all bundled up in our attitude towards life and its preservation.     

A lot has been written about medieval Jews and medicine. While we were forbidden to labor in many professions there was a bit of leeway when it came to our role as physicians. We couldn’t be farmers; we couldn’t be teachers in the wider circle of society; we couldn’t be craftspeople. But, as I mentioned another time, we could be bankers because that was “devil’s work”, in the minds of the church that reigned supreme in those days. Since we were less than second-rate citizens, we were entitled to that status.      

But we could also dabble in medicine. Some say it was because we were able to speak more than one language and the powers-that-be needed such talented people. That we proved to be good physicians, well, that was an added benefit.  But we were paid less and still treated miserably.      

The earliest medical text written in  Hebrew was called Sefer Refuot, the Book of Remedies and dates to the seventh or eighth centuries. It states unequivocally that it is God who transmits medicine to mortals for which physicians are merely agents of the Divine. Now not every physician was one of these agents. Sorry to say, Cathy, women weren’t even in the gynecological realm of medicine. Having said that, we know from the story of Moses and subsequent written material that women could be midwives, the first of whom were Shifra and Puah from the aforementioned  Moses saga. This discrimination changed a bit about 700 years after the text was written…you see, there was progress. Here too was a problem. Educating women to be doctors was the role of their male relatives who already were physicians.      I found research in this topic to be fascinating. Jews were allowed in the medical colleges in German universities by the mid-1800s, but we were permitted to study only in fields such as dermatology, psychiatry, neurology, pediatrics and venereology, all of which weren’t completely developed as we know them to be today. And it shouldn’t be a surprise then that we excelled in these fields. Just take psychiatry…the Jews such as Freud, developed it; and from that field came all the other what might be called “helping professions” such as psychology, social work and counseling.      

Just to give you an idea of how many  Jews were physicians a little past the medieval period, in the first half of the 14^th century only 5% of the population of Marseilles were Jews, but they accounted for 43% of the city’s doctors. And three of the greatest rabbis/commentators in our history – Maimonides, Ibn Ezra and  Nachmonides – were physicians. While the  Torah says in the Book of Exodus, “I, the  Eternal One, am your healer,” only Christian Scientists took that literally. We said that, yes, God is our healer, but physicians are  God’s agents in the healing process.      

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  There are numerous instances found in our Bible of biblical characters of fame who prayed for the ill. Abraham prayed, Moses prayed, Elijah prayed. We have a foundation of prayer in our hurry to heal the sick. But nowhere is the use of physicians discounted. And like so many others things in the evolution of religion our attitude towards medicine and physicians evolved as well. This is the basic direction of that evolution:  We should pray to God and not use doctors People do not have the right to heal, but it is their custom to do so. There should be a combination of prayer, sacrifices and doctors. A physician has permission to heal A sage may not live in a city without a doctor. A doctor helps God heal the sick. A sick person must call a doctor, but he should continue to trust in God. It is a mitzvah for a doctor to heal people. Now who says Judaism is stagnant? Today the bottom line is pikuach nefesh, the saving of a life. That is the paramount value, and regardless of the situation and whether the patient is Reform, Conservative or Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, an atheist or a Humanist, there should be medical care by a qualified physician in order to fulfill this basic value. And Cathy and JJ, if you want to use sheep in the treatment of your dental patients, hey, who am I to argue! After all, you’re the doctors!      
you’re the doctors!