I recently heard a speaker ask: Do you think that if they find a cure for cancer, that we will all be able to breathe a sigh of relief? If it's not cancer, it will be something else! Just as previously, it was tuberculosis and numerous other diseases that killed us.
I've been thinking about that. Radical changes have taken place in medicine. It was once common for parents to lose numerous children to childhood illnesss* and now they don't. Our life expectancy has gone up.** People in their 40's, 50's and 60's don't look and act old the way they once did. Is it time to rejoice?
And yet, there is illness all around us. People we know personally, including children, are or have been seriously sick and some have died. There are so many ways that doctors can help people today that verge on the miraculous like heart transplants, but overall - are we burying fewer people and at older ages? Maybe this is a question for the chevra kadishas to answer.
If other forms of sickness have overtaken us, then does it make sense to be grateful for immunizations and other medical advances? Or should we not look at it that way and rather, thank G-d for the advances we have made while praying for the eradication of all illness and death with the coming of Moshiach?
* most recently, I read of a woman in the 1930's who lost five children and had five remaining children and this was not unusual
** 59-male, 63-female in 1930 to 75-male, 80 female in 2012 in the US
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Until Moshiach there will always be death and no one will be able to escape it. Illness is one way for death to occur and accidents are another. People naturally want to live so it is normal to want to cure illness. Hashem has bestowed upon mankind the method by which to make discoveries and utilize the knowledge that Hashem bestows. Obviously, Hashem has granted us the means to have longer lives because He wants tzadikim to have longer lives to perfect the world. Everyone else lives longer because of the tzadikim.
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