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will take revenge if we do not heal their children. Therefore, we are
obligated to heal them.

The physician who felt unable to attend to the boy thus acted cor-
rectly in refusing to treat him because his treatment would not have
been successful. On the other hand, the second physician who came
to treat him also did the right thing in healing him.

This is how Hashem yisbarach dealt with Yishmael when he and his
mother wandered in the desert and he was about to die of thirst and
Hashem showed them a spring of water. The angels asked,“Master of
the universe, are You revealing a spring of water to this person, whose
descendents will kill your children by thirst?!” Hashem responded,
“Where he presently is,” (Bereishis 21:17) meaning that at the moment
Yishmael has not yet sinned. The Maharsha wonders (Rosh Hasha-
na 16b) how this case differs from the halachah of ben sorer u’moreh
whom Chazal say is killed “because of what he will eventually be-
come.” There, although he is as yet innocent of serious crimes we don’t
invoke the defense of “where he presently is.” He answers that the ben
sorer u’moreh himself will grow up to rob people and will eventually be
put to death for serious crimes, therefore it is better that he die now
while still innocent. This was not the case with Yishmael, who himself
did no evil. Rather, it was his descendants who killed the Jews and it
was therefore not possible to kill him.

In sefer Melachim II (chap. 6) we are told that the king of Aram
stationed his men on the road to ambush Yisrael. From time to time
Elisha Hanavi would inform the king of Yisrael where the Aramean
bands were lying in ambush. The king of Aram couldn’t understand
what was happening until he was told that Elisha Hanavi was re-
vealing all his secrets to the king of Yisrael, even the things he said
in private. The king of Aram then sent a large army to the town of
Dosan where Elisha Hanavi was staying. When Elisha saw them he
prayed to Hashem and he struck the Arameans blind and led them
to Shomron to the king of Yisrael. Hashem then restored their sight
and they saw that they were in Shomron, surrounded by the army of
Yisrael.‘The king of Yisrael said to Elisha when he saw them,“Shall I
thoroughly smite them, my father?’ He answered, ‘Those whom you

486 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein