[Avodah] FW: Medicine for a Metzora

[Daniel Israel]

On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:20:58 -0600 Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> 
wrote:
>On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 12:59:57PM -0600, Daniel Israel wrote:
>: Leaving aside the question of whether there is support in Chazal
>: for the idea that tzaras manifests itself as a physical illness 
in
>: some sense, I would say that the real question is not whether it 
is
>: mutar to heal it, so much as whether it would be effective.
>
>Doesn't the pasuq describe the appearance of the skin at length? 
If we
>say that the cause is spiritual, wouldn't that mean it is perforce 
>both?

P'shita.  Obviously it is both in the sense that it has physical 
characteristics that can be observed and that it can be treated by 
purely non-physical means, both as described in the pasuk.  I 
assume the the intention of the asking whether it is a physical 
disease or not is really a question of whether it manifests itself 
through physical symptoms that are otherwise beyond normal teva, or 
through a normal process of disease.  IOW, is the physical 
manifestation of tzaras a "miraculous" process, or is it simply 
that HKB"H picked one physical illness and put it under a special 
HP.  This is the question I was leaving aside.  (Personally, I 
would lean toward the former, since tzaras of houses and clothing 
do not seem to have any scientific explanation.)

The only nafka mina I see is that in the teva model, one could heal 
tzaras with a medical intervention, and it would require HP to 
cause the intervention to fail, assuming HKB"H didn't want the 
person cured.  As opposed to the miraculous explanation, in which 
medical treatment would fail derech hateva, so to speak.

>I would have asked in the reverse -- what physical disease isn't
>spiritual? Wouldn't the claim of a spiritual disease imply that HP 
>must be limited in a way that excludes other diseases?

Ain hachi nami.  To anticipate the next piece of the discussion, we 
know that any disease and any cure can only come if HKB"H allows 
it.  So what is the difference between tzaras and any other 
illness?  The only difference we know from the Torah is that there 
are a set of mitzvos associated with tzaras.  Chazal also tell us 
that there tzaras is associated with certain spiritual 
shortcomings, and its cure is associated with certain spiritual 
repairs.  As opposed to any other disease, where I don't know for 
sure why it came, nor why it left.

>: The difference between tzaras and the other examples you cite is
>: that tzaras is specifically described in the Torah and a specific
>: refuah given.  It would seem to me that, regardless of the 
physical
>: characteristics, one could successfully heal tzaras by any 
medical
>: means.
>
>This too fits the "spiritusomatic illness" idea. At most, you 
would 
>cure the symtpom, allowing the cause of the disease to fester. 
Even if 
>mutar, would it be advisable?
>
>Does it make sense to cure someone's high blood pressure and not 
>address his stress?

Here we are asking two different questions.  My question is, given 
that HKB"H gave us a spiritual means for healing tzaras, do we 
expect that he would allow someone a refuah without doing the 
necessary spiritual repairs?  I would expect not, regardless of 
whether the physical aspect of the disease is natural or not.  This 
is different from, say, a broken bone, where HKB"H presumably 
maintains a degree of hester panim and generally allows medicine to 
perform within its normal bounds.  (Perhaps He sends, e.g., a 
broken bone knowing that what the person needs is exactly the 
degree of suffering that will occur _with_ a normal medical 
intervention.)

You are raising a secondary issue: if one _could_ cure tzaras, is 
it a good idea?  An interesting question, but I doubt the premise 
sufficiently that I don't think it really matters.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu