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injured the bladder did not save the mother’s life, and for that he is 2 1
held accountable in Heaven.
1 SuMMaRy and Conclusions
1. If a physician who is licensed by a beis din and receives a salary
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for his work made a mistake and damaged the patient, he is
exempt from payment in a human court on the basis of a decree
enacted by Chazal, but he is guilty by the laws of Heaven.
2. There is room to question whether or not an eye doctor is in-
cluded in the Rabbinic decree, since he does not really heal but
rather measures and prescribes lenses so that his clients can see
better.
3. If an eye doctor is included in the decree, even if he errs in his
refraction measurements, in our case he is exempt also by the
laws of Heaven, for two reasons:
a. According to the Tashbetz, as long as he wounded a per-
son’s body neither with an iron utensil nor with his hands,
he is exempt by the laws of Heaven.
b. According to our differentiation between a physician and
a judge, since he did not wound the body of the patient
whose eyes he tested, he is also exempt by the laws of
Heaven. According to Rav Chaim Kanievsky’s assertion
that a judge’s word is always Torah, the physician may be
held accountable by Heaven.
4. If an eye doctor is not included in the Rabbinic decree for physi-
cians, he should be obligated to pay for any errors he makes, just
like an expert ritual slaughterer and an expert moneychanger
who erred when they received payment for their services.
5. According to the Imrei Binah, in a case where the physician re-
ceives a fixed salary and is not paid per case, it is possible that,
like a judge, he is exempt from payment for an error, even by the
laws of Heaven.
58 1 Medical-HalacHic Responsa of Rav ZilbeRstein
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AnsweR
As mentioned above, a physician who heals and errs but with the per-
mission of a beis din is exempt from punishment in a human court but
is held accountable in the Heavenly Court. The Aruch Hashulchan
writes that nowadays a physician has to be licensed by the government
to practice medicine. It seems that what is referred to as “permission
from a beis din” does not necessarily refer to the local beis din but to
any beis din that examined his credentials and then licensed him as a
physician to practice medicine. If this licensed physician then erred
and unintentionally caused damage, he is exempt in a human court
but held accountable in the Heavenly Court.
However, in our case, I think that he is obligated to pay, since
he gave salts to a patient with kidney disease without notifying his
doctor. By doing so he committed a crime according to conventional
medicine. He, the naturopath, should have informed the patient’s
physician or consulted with other physicians. (The Tashbetz (Part 3
#82) writes that a physician should not speak in front of another phy-
sician who is more knowledgeable than he, as is the law for a judge,
and he should not rely on his experience.) Only in cases where natu-
ropathic medicine does no harm according to conventional medicine
is the naturopath allowed to do as he pleases. If several conventional
physicians opine that some remedy is harmful, the naturopath must
consult with others. This is no different from administering any con-
troversial conventional medicine, where one must consult with others
before administering. If he did not consult, he is a criminal, and is
obligated to pay for damages he caused.
Consultation with others and unity can bring about great advances
in the field of medicine, as explained in the book Shiurei Daas (Part
3, p. 56), written by Rabbi Y. L. Bloch, Rosh Yeshiva and Av Beis Din
of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, Ohio. He writes:
“And the whole earth was of one language and of one
speech” (Bereishis 11:1). The people of that generation knew
the mighty power of unity and thought that with unity
they could discover solutions to plagues and illnesses of
Alternative healer 2 27
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