To Listen to Doctors or Not

There are health situations that impact on mitzvah observance, such as fasting.  The halacha is that what the doctor says, goes.  This is adhered to by all Torah observant Jews, whether Litvish or Chassidish.

For example, there's the famous story about an epidemic in Lithuania and doctors said that nobody was allowed to fast. Most people were inclined to ignore this, since how could one eat on Yom Kippur? Realizing this, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter (founder of the Mussar movement) ate in shul in public on Yom Kippur.  Seeing him eat on Yom Kippur, the masses went home to eat too.

As for a Chassidic proponent, the Lubavitcher Rebbe wrote to someone, "I object to your not meticulously obeying the doctor’s orders, as “Permission was granted the healer to heal.”

By granting this permission, healing becomes a mitzva on the part of the healer, as well as a notable and great mitzvah on the part of the individual being healed, [i.e.,] “You shall scrupulously guard your health”; “It is part of the service of G‑d to insure that one’s body is healthy and whole.”

 

With that introduction, I came across yet another example of a woman who disobeyed doctors' orders and went on to have a child or children.  In this case, the woman died and was regarded admirably in her circles for having mesirus nefesh to bring children into the world. 

 

I understand that sometimes, doctors tell a woman not to have more children only because, in their view, no women should have children after the age of 35.  This is because it puts her into what the medical world considers a "high risk" category.  If the woman has no health problems, then a medical directive like this is not one we would regard as a mitzvah to obey, and if there are any concerns, they are discussed with a rav. 

 

But in a case where there is a specific reason for the doctor to be concerned about the mother's health, and she goes on to have children regardless, then even if she doesn't die as a result, is she a role model of mesirus nefesh for us? Or is she an example of someone who has transgressed the mitzvah of guarding her health?

Real Mesirus Nefesh

In case you've heard that we can learn mesirus nefesh from the Arabs, a speaker I heard today said, no!

Why?

Because mesirus nefesh is selfless, it transcends reason.  What Arab terrorists do is to gain Paradise.  This is what they are promised and this is what motivates them.

No comparison.

Not so Poshut

In R' Dovid Kaplan's fourth "Impact" book, called Lasting Impact! he tells of a couple who had a baby boy and decided to name him after the mother's grandfather.  But then she began to have second thoughts.  "My grandfather was a very nice man and a fine person," she said to her husband, "but he wasn't a talmid chacham.  He was just a poshute Yid (plain Jew).  Maybe we should name the baby after someone great."

 

Her husband consulted with his rav who asked, "When did her grandfather live?" When he answered, "He came to America in the 30's," the rav asked, "And where are his children today?"

 

The husband answered, "All of them are frum and all his grandchildren are bnei Torah."

 

The rav then said, "Anyone who lived in America in the 30's and 40's and raised a family that produced bnei Torah is not a poshute Yid! Name the baby after him."

 

The same week I read this story, someone told me that when her husband's grandfather was bringing up his children at some point, when he lost a lot of money (see story that follows) he went to Rabbi Levy to take his girls out of Beis Yaakov.  Rabbi Levy asked him why he was taking them out and when he heard that it was because of money he said something to the effect that money has nothing to do with this and made sure that they remained free of charge! The P.S. to that story is that when the grandfather had more money in later years he repaid the money.

As to how the grandfather lost a lot of money -  he built a dry cleaning business from scratch with partners, with the intention that it would be a shomer Shabbos place.  When it was ready to open, the partners decided that Shabbos was the busiest day for business and that it would have to be open on Shabbos.  At that point, the grandfather pulled out of the business at a great loss of money. A daughter of his remembers the hard times that she went through at that time and how she went to the bank with her mother to redeem a bond so that they would have a little more money.

 

People like this are not famous, they don't appear in our Jewish history books, but they are far from being "poshute Yidden."  They are Jewish heroes.

Learning from Everyone

In a post one year ago: here a rosh yeshiva is quoted as saying, "Anyone who tells you they are religious because of the next world is fooling themselves and fooling you."

I wonder how he would respond when asked, why is it that Paradise motivates a Moslem to kill himself, or does he not believe that Moslems are firm believers in reward in the next world and live, or die, as the case may be, to attain it?

It is rather incredible how Arab family men say goodbye to their wives and children and then blow themselves up. 

In the spirit of learning from everyone and everything we see, if Arabs are that motivated to drastic action because of belief in the Next World, we need to strengthen our own belief in the Next World.

Beyond Segulos

In the book "Riding the Waves" by Tamar Ansh, there is an amazing story that the author heard directly from the girl's mother.  It's called "The Sister Project" and it's on page 156 and the story goes as follows:

Shoshi (pseudonym) was a senior in an Israeli Beis Yaakov and there were about 40 girls in her class.  Most girls were from large families and although parents wanted to marry off their children in order, this was sometimes hard to do when there were many eligible siblings.  Many girls in Shoshi's class were worried about how they would do a shidduch when they had one or several older single siblings.

Shoshi and her friends made a list of all the older siblings in their class alone and it amounted to 40 singles! They did every known segula such as hafrashas challa, saying Tehillim, saying Perek Shira and Shir Ha'Shirim, they gave tzedaka, etc. and nobody got engaged.

Shoshi had initiated the project (even though she did not need this yeshua herself) and she was very disappointed.  She wracked her brains for an idea and came up with this - maybe they needed to do something that required mesirus nefesh on their part.  It's not that doing segulos is easy.  They take time and effort, but they're formulaic and don't necessitate going out of your comfort zone.

Her class had a teacher that no one liked and the girls misbehaved in her class, talking, passing notes, etc.  It occurred to Shoshi that their mesirus nefesh project should be that the entire class behave like model students for ten hours of this teacher's class.  Her classmates did not exactly jump at the opportunity but Shoshi insisted and convinced them all. 

You'll have to read the story for all the details but suffice it to say, the girls behaved, the teacher was thrilled, and after ten hours of behaving properly, ten singles from their list got engaged!

The girls were overwhelmed by this obvious cause-and-effect connection and decided to do another ten hours.  Yes, another ten names were crossed off their list.

Shoshi wanted to do a third round of ten hours but many girls had had enough.  Shoshi must be an extraordinary young lady because she convinced them, and she had to convince them all, to do it again.  The teacher was ecstatic, they had behaved for thirty hours, and thirty singles from their list were either engaged or married, and some of them were over thirty years old!

The story ends with the girls working on their fourth set of ten hours.