If we have caught ourselves thinking about illness and the various treatment options available over the last few months, it is because much of our lives these days has been punctuated by this pandemic we’ve been forced to grapple with. Many of the things we’d do without much of a thought a few months ago, today requires focus and deliberation to ensure protection from antigens being passed around in the air that we breathe and on the surfaces we come in contact with. But how does illness manifest itself in our bodies?
Many would suggest that it’s the invasion of germs or antigens from contaminated air particles produced by the cough of an infected person into the air, or coming in contact with a surface that an infected person with germs on their hands or body touched, thus transmitting it in that fashion. But while all this is true on some level, I’m seeking a more essential definition of illness and how it is manifest in the body on the most subtle and basic level.
In a journal entry, discovered posthumously in 1994 after the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, ob’m, a young Menachem Mendel Schneerson writes: “Illness sets in when the balance between fire, air, water, and dust within the person is disrupted.” The common building blocks in all of creation are these elements — aish, ruach, mayim, and afar — which are commonly referred to merely by their initials, arm’a. While part of the hidden miracle of life is the great precision in which the 37.2 trillion cells in the human body work in tandem with each other, all of those cells can be traced back to these four elements — each of which are distributed in every creation, defining based on the measure of each element, the predisposition of each person.
The challenge with maintaining homeostasis on this essential level is the constant fluctuations of the world we live in. Anything which falls within the jurisdiction of time and space are subject to constant change. So while for much of our lives the functions within our bodies work in harmony, enabling us to live and be productive, all it takes is the slightest imbalance in any of these cells or functions and our entire biological system can be jeopardized.
Antibodies are cell endings that combat any attempt at a foreign substance to enter our bodies, in order to ward off infection. While this biological concept is well-known, since we are dealing with a novel virus, much of which we are learning more about daily, the ability of antibodies to confer immunity or even fight this virus in seriously-ill patients when injected into their bloodstream is still very much unknown. Therefore, I’m not going to be addressing antibodies on a biological level but rather on the spiritual level, which will resolve the aforementioned issue of remaining homeostatic and consistent in a constantly changing world.
After the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s heart attack on Shemini Atzeres of 1977–78 the Rebbe’s secretaries noticed that at specific times he’d develop a cough. He could be reading letters and suddenly begin to cough. It manifested itself during farbrengens at times as well, but on one occasion after a sustained coughing fit they enlisted medical attention in order to ascertain what the issue was. The Rebbe quickly discounted the medical significance of this particular episode, saying among other things that it was due to hisgabrus hachomer al hatzurah, the overpowering of materialism over spirituality. So while it is important to maintain equilibrium among the creative elements in remaining healthy on a physical level, people of spirit could develop physical ailments in the presence of too much physicality and materialism and not enough spirit.
Before I develop this idea further, just a disclaimer that is important anytime we address a medically related topic. Anyone suffering from COVID-19, or any health episode for that matter, should seek the care of a medical practitioner. While these ideas henceforth are true on the level of the soul and, for that matter on every level, it doesn’t supersede the importance of deferring to the expertise of doctors in facilitating physical healing, which is mandated by the Torah.
With Shavuos literally upon us, I felt this topic was extremely timely based on the notion that all illness was cured when the Jews accepted the Torah at Har Sinai. The Midrash states that all of creation became nullified, melting in the grandeur and ecstasy of that world-stopping event that everything self-corrected. Even Moshe Rabbeinu, who from the youngest age was hampered by a speech impediment, on account of which he attempted to circumvent his involvement in the redemption of the Jewish people, no longer suffered from it. I believe the secret to the curative powers of that event are present within the Torah every time we sit down, open a Sefer, and immerse ourselves anew in the light hidden within those pages.
The Gemara states, “chosh b’rosho yaasok baTorah …. chosh b’chol gufo yaasok baTorah.” Torah is ultimately the solution for all physical ailments and feelings of discomfort. Torah learned in its optimal way is meant to transport the student back to the event of the giving of the Torah at Har Sinai, as Chazal clearly state: “Just as there [at Sinai] the Torah was received through dread, fear, trepidation, and perspiration so too today, every time we engage in Torah study, it should generate those selfsame feelings.” Furthermore, the Chazal utilizing the manner of derash deduce from a seemingly superfluous word “today” in the chronology of the giving of the Torah that every day the Torah has to be learned as new. It’s clear, according to this, that true dedication in Torah has the ability to transcend time and space and the effects that those movements have on this world and our lives.
What is the spiritual manifestation of illness and how does receiving the Torah in the proper manner possess the power to cure it? Spiritual illness is when there is a lack of true unity between a Jew and Hashem. The Tzemach Tzedek writes that the word for illness in Hebrew, choleh, has the numerical value of 49, one shy of the highest rung of G-d consciousness, known otherwise as the 50 gates of binah. On that level, which no man has attained during their lifetime, man becomes a conduit through which the light of G-d emanates. Conversely, someone who hasn’t climbed the ladder of unity with G-d can learn and understand the Torah and perform the mitzvos with great care and dedication but still feel autonomous before G-d. Spiritually speaking, that is an illness.
The Midrash states, “When Hashem gave the Torah, birds did not squeal, chickens didn’t flap their wings, the ofanim did not fly, and the angels did not recite Kaddosh.” In addition, when G-d spoke, no echo reverberated, which seems to indicate that there was perfect unity and interinclusion between G-d and His creation to the point that there was no sense of otherness at that time. The Jews at the giving of the Torah had become the perfect receptacles into which the Torah could be given.
Rabbi YY Jacobson and his older brother Simon were, during their younger years, part of a team of scribes, known as chozrim, who would review and transcribe the many hours-long farbrengens of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. On one occasion, the younger YY Jacobson recalled marveling at the genius of the Rebbe while he intricately laid out a dissertation on the parashah of that week and as a result it was the one time in his years as part of that team that his memory had failed him. Later that day, he lamented his inability to remember that day’s dissertation to his older brother Simon, who taught him then that the trick to being able to absorb and retain information over a long period of time is by completely emptying oneself out, becoming an empty receptacle capable of possessing all the information. He said that the moment you marvel at something fascinating or formulate your own feedback or opinions, ego has been mixed into the equation, the unity has been broken, and the ability to absorb impacted. It then occurred to me that this is a Gemara in Berachos, which states: “An empty vessel can hold onto substance whereas a full vessel cannot.”
There has been much talk these days about antibodies. People who tested positive with the dreaded virus have been tested for antibodies in the hopes that they could walk about freely without fear of reinfection, which as of now has not been medically confirmed. However, how do we develop antibodies, a term which connotes the chassidic concept known as bittul, in order to combat these feelings of autonomy and become more worthy of accepting the Torah this year, as the Yidden did over 3,300 years ago and that the Torah we learn daily continues to connect us with the event of the giving of the Torah, as the Torah mandates?
For this we need to be mindful of the manner in which we, the Jewish people, received the Torah. The Torah was not given to us directly from G-d, rather there was a process of transmission beginning with Moshe Rabbeinu, who received it from G-d and then passed it onto Yehoshua, who passed it on to the Zkeinim, and so on and so forth. The role of Moshe in the transmission of the Torah was not arbitrary, it was deliberate. The Zohar HaKadosh states that there is an incarnate of Moshe in every generation whose role is similar to the one carried out by Moshe in Egypt, by the giving of the Torah and throughout the Jewish nation’s sojourn in the desert.
It’s remarkable that the concept of shlichus as delineated in the Gemara in Kiddushin on 41a, a system that was expounded upon by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe to reintroduce Jews to the soul that pulsates within their very beings, is learned out from the verse, “And they, the entire congregation of Israel slaughtered it…” referring to the Paschal lamb. The message herein is that uniting ourselves or nullifying our will to the Moshe Rabbeinu in our generation has the ability to extricate us from every Egypt, both internal and external, and put us on the path towards receiving the Torah. In Mitzrayim, it was particularly the da’as, or the Jews’ awareness of G-d, which was in exile and it was Moshe then who excavated into the depth of the Jewish souls, drawing forth the intuitive power that we have the power to fight the prevailing illnesses of the times and reclaim a life of loyalty and dedication to G-d. Similarly, it is the antibodies, on a biological level, which activated the body’s inherent ability to fight foreign substances seeking to infect the body, sending all of its functionality into disarray.
Chazal state, “There is no one as wise as someone who has been challenged.” Having had to endure this dreadful pandemic, regardless of whether or not one actually contracted it or not, places us within the rubric of a ba’al nisayon. We have celebrated Shavuos many times in the past. Perhaps in the context of COVID-19 and the widespread antibody testing, let us enter into a Shavuos and accept the Torah this year by dedicating ourselves to the Moshe Rabbeinu in our generation who possesses the ability to unlock within us the power to unleash through the inner light of Torah, redemption throughout the world. May we merit to see it with our own eyes this year.
