Mishpatim: 5786 - "And he shall surely heal him": The Mishnah in Tractate Kiddushin states: "The best of doctors goes to Gehinnom." Is that possible? A special explanation from the Rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yosef-Chaim Sonnenfeld. Presented by…

00:02 Speaker 1 In the weekly parsha we learn about payment for medical treatment. The Torah tells us, “He shall surely heal.” There’s an interesting explanation from the rabbi of Jerusalem. He would point out that whenever healing is mentioned in the Torah, in Tanach, the letter peh has no dagesh, no dot in it. Only here does it have a dot: “He shall surely heal.” Why? He explained that from this verse we learn that a doctor has been given permission to heal. In other words, this is about a doctor doing the healing. What does that mean? Everywhere else the Torah speaks about healing, it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu who heals. We ask Him to heal us, and so on. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu heals, nothing remains. When a doctor heals, a dot remains. That’s why there’s a dot specifically here, where it speaks about healing: “He shall surely heal.” At first glance, why does a doctor need permission? “From here we learn that a doctor has been given permission to heal.” He needs special permission because one might say: If Hakadosh Boruch Hu caused a particular person to have a particular illness, G-d forbid, who is a human being to come and undo what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to do? But the permission comes from here, from the Torah. The Torah gave a doctor permission to heal. The Gemara says in Kiddushin that the best of doctors—

01:47 Speaker 2 Go to Gehinnom.

01:48 Speaker 1 Go to Gehinnom. The question is, why do the best of doctors go to Gehinnom? After all, a doctor helps people and heals them. So why would he go to Gehinnom—even the best of doctors? There are several explanations. We’ll mention just a few very interesting ones. One explanation is that there’s a doctor who thinks he himself does the healing. He doesn’t believe it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu who heals through him as His agent; he thinks he does it himself. So when he davens, he sees no need to ask for healing, because he’s the doctor. How many blessings are there in the Amidah? Eighteen. More were added later, but originally there were eighteen. If this doctor doesn’t need the blessing asking for healing and doesn’t say it, only seventeen remain. “Tov,” meaning “good,” has a gematria of seventeen. So the “best of doctors”—the doctor who thinks he doesn’t need to ask for healing because he himself heals—goes to Gehinnom. There’s another explanation, a simple one: the best of doctors are needed in Gehinnom. There are, so to speak, injuries there that call for a good doctor. So that’s where they need the best of doctors.

03:16 Speaker 3 And here we were, just setting out to study medicine.

03:20 Speaker 1 There’s another very interesting explanation from the rabbi of Jerusalem. Dr. Wallach, who founded Shaare Zedek Hospital, was very close to him and would consult him. Once, Dr. Wallach asked him why the best of doctors go to Gehinnom. He gave him a beautiful explanation. Sometimes, he said, a patient, G-d forbid, needs surgery, but there’s a risk he won’t survive it. The doctor’s intervention could cause him to die. Some doctors say, “Why should I take on that uncertainty and risk? Who knows what will happen?” So they hold back. But the best of doctors, the true doctor, tries anyway. Even if, G-d forbid, he doesn’t succeed, the patient dies, and he himself goes to Gehinnom, he still tries. Perhaps his treatment will succeed after all. He’s willing to go to Gehinnom. That’s the best of doctors, the very best doctor. Here’s another explanation of “the best of doctors go to Gehinnom.” We know the Rebbe always said that in medical matters, you should consult two doctors, to hear another doctor’s opinion. But some doctors get angry when you tell them you want to speak to another doctor, because they think they’re the best. “Why are you going to consult someone else? Another doctor?” That’s what it means: “The best of doctors”—someone who thinks he’s the best doctor and gets angry when a patient consults someone else—

04:59 Speaker 4 Goes to Gehinnom.

05:00 Speaker 1 Goes to Gehinnom. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu help us so that none of us needs doctors.

05:05 Speaker 4 Blessed be He, amen.

05:05 Speaker 1 Perhaps we’ll finish with something else the rabbi of Jerusalem once said to Dr. Wallach, the founder of Shaare Zedek. He asked him, “Tell me, when you say in your prayers, ‘Our Father, our King, send complete healing to the sick among Your people,’ what are you thinking? If Hakadosh Boruch Hu heals everyone, you won’t have a livelihood. So what are you thinking when you say those words?” Dr. Wallach told him, “When I say ‘Heal us’—when I say ‘Our Father, our King’—I’m thinking of someone with a psychosomatic illness. He thinks he’s sick, so he comes to me and pays me, and I tell him there’s nothing wrong with him. He isn’t sick at all.” The rabbi of Jerusalem told him, “That’s why we ask, ‘Our Father, our King, send complete healing to the sick among Your people’—so that a person won’t even think he has an illness.” May Hakadosh Boruch Hu help us be healed of every illness.

06:05 Speaker 4 Amen.

06:05 Speaker 1 Good news.

06:06 Speaker 4 G-d willing.