Medical Ethics

Permission to Heal

According to the Talmudic sages, permission to heal the sick is implicit in
Exodus 21:18-19:

When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist and the man does not die but becomes bedridden, then if the man rises again and walks abroad with his staff, he that struck him shall be clear; only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall have him thoroughly healed.

These verses require anyone who strikes another to cause the victim to be healed.
It follows that the Torah permits medical practice (Tractate Berachot 60a; Baba Kama 85a).

Among the commentators on this passage, Rashi and the Tosafot are of particular
importance.

Rashi [ibid.] explained the need for such permission in the Torah. Had the Torah been silent, we might have thought it improper to heal a person whom God has caused to be ill. Although all illness ultimately derives from God, the Torah makes clear that it is His will that we alleviate suffering.

The Tosafot observed that Torah’s permission to heal applies equally in cases of disease and in cases of injury inflicted by a fellow man.

Rav Kook

Rav Kook (Lithuania/Israel, 1865-1935) had a novel approach to question of the
Torah’s permitting physicians to heal (Daat Kohen 140; page 260b):

When the Talmudic sages inferred on the basis of the verses in Exodus 21 that physicians are permitted to heal, they clearly meant that although there is some doubt regarding the theory of medicine healing is still to be permitted. For if it were clear (beyond doubt that theory of medicine is correct), how could one imagine that healing would not be obligatory? Does one not violate the verse “You shall not stand forth against the life of your neighbor” [Leviticus 19:16] even when one’s neighbor’s misfortune is caused by Heaven….? However, the principle here is that the principles of medicine have not been so clearly proven and it is unknown whether their assumptions are to be doubted. Therefore the Torah had to permit healing for there is no other way open to man.

In this passage Rav Kook suspected the foundations of medicine. Since every medical theory must be viewed with distrust, it is unclear whether any medical theory should be applied in lifesaving. Perhaps, one might think, the biblical law which prohibits standing idly by when one’s neighbor is in danger requires us to take only measures of undoubted value.