Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Bechukosai

Against Medical Advice

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

May 26, 2022

If you will follow my decrees and observe my commandments and perform them, then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce, and the tree of the field will give its fruit.

Vayikra 26:3-4

The Ramban explains that when B’nei Yisrael follow the Torah, Hashem will perform hidden miracles for them, including the brachos mentioned here and the removal of illnesses (see Shmos 23:25). The Ramban also says that ideally, sick people should seek out prophets, rather than doctors, to discover the spiritual cause of their maladies. The Ibn Ezra (Shmos 21) writes similarly that although Chazal permit doctors to heal (see Bava Kama 85b), this applies only to external illnesses; internal ones are to be left in Hashem’s hands.

The Rambam (Peirush HaMishnayos, Pesachim perek 4) and Akeidas Yitzchak (Vayishlach) dispute this vehemently and say that one must go to a doctor when he is ill.  This is the position of the Bach as well (Y.D. 336).

R’ Eliyahu Dessler suggests that the Ramban is only addressing people on a high spiritual level. Indeed, many Acharonim (including Sheivet Mihudah, Birkei Yosef, and Tzitz Eliezer) assume that the Ramban’s approach does not apply to people of our time.

A minority of Acharonim (including the Avnei Neizer citing his father) write that if the doctor says one must transgress an issur to restore his health, the patient may choose not to listen and rely on the Ramban and the Ibn Ezra. But most poskim (Radbaz, Magein Avraham, Mishnah Brurah, R’ Ovadia Yosef, and others) hold that he must heed the doctor’s advice.