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to improve their marriage even when the intervention is against the
couple’s will, in a situation where their pain, distress and heartbreak
is liable to sicken them.

However, this proof can be pushed off because the case can be
made that coercing a patient to be cured of a physical ailment differs
from intervening between a married couple, for several reasons.

1. It is possible that Rav’s illness was dangerous and the rea-
son Samuel sent Karna to investigate him was in order to
decide whether to treat him personally or to instruct others
to heal him – this why he wanted to know whether or not
he was a Torah scholar. Thus we still don’t know wheth-
er if it is permitted to heal a non-dangerously ill patient
against his will, so neither can we infer whether or not it is
permitted to intervene in a couple’s marriage against their
will. Tosfos’s wording however (ibid. s.v. Rach): “And Sam-
uel knew the great man would drink from the river and it
would give him an intestinal ailment,” implies that he was
not in danger.

2. We learn in the Tosefta (Shekalim, 1,2), “This is compara-
ble to a person who sustained a[n infected] wound to his
leg and the doctor ties him down and cuts into his flesh
in order to cure him.” This implies that it is permitted to
coerce a patient and to cut into his raw flesh in order to
save his life. This is also clear from the sefer,Mor Uketziya
(328) and it is logical that the same applies to a disease
that doesn’t actually endanger life because healing disease
is a mitzvah, “You shall guard your lives very carefully,”
(Devarim, 4,15) and we coerce people to fulfill their mitz-
vah obligations. Although it is evident from the Ketzos
Hachoshen (3,1) that only beis din – but not a regular
person – is allowed to coerce a person to fulfill mitzvos,
since healing illness falls within the purview of restoring
lost property, it is possible that no authorization from beis
din is necessary. This is particularly so according to the

204 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein