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"This 'Doctor' Is Always on Call!"

06/30/2021 03:15:30 PM

Jun30

Rabbi Reuben Israel Abraham, CDR, CHC, USN (ret)

In this week’s parashah, Parashat Pinchas, we find the following: “HaShem spoke to Moshe saying: ‘Assail the Midianites and defeat them, for they assailed you through the conspiracy they practiced against you because of the affair of Pe’or and because of the affair of their kinswoman Kozbi, daughter of the Midianite chieftain, who was killed at the time of the plague on the account of Pe’or.’” (BeMidbar 25:16-18) The conspiracy mentioned here refers to the wicked Bilaam who advised the Midianite men to send their women on a mission of enticing the B’nei Yisrael men to engage in highly improper sexual behavior with them.  Because the Midianite men were essentially the instigators of the deaths of 24,000 of the B’nei Yisrael, Hashem judged them as being guilty of conspiracy and deserving of death.  Rebbe Nachman of Breslov explains that Bilaam is the epitome of all evil and the embodiment of the seventy nations, all the nations of the world except for Am Yisrael.  (Likutei Moharan I:36b) The history of Am Yisrael shows that the nations of the world continually conspire against us with each nation using its own unique “weapon” against us.  These weapons include the weapon of conspiracy.  Bilaam, the embodiment of all evil in this world, engaged in a conspiracy to destroy B’nei Yisrael’s Holy Covenant with Hashem, an action which would result in the destruction of the B’nei Yisrael.  As the Melitzer Rebbe put it: either Bilaam kills the Jew or the Jew kills Bilaam.  Perhaps the following Chasidic parable will help to explain the concept of general evil and the general correction needed to defeat it:

  The Princess, the King’s only daughter, was deathly ill.  The King sent out an urgent proclamation to all four corners of the kingdom calling for all physicians to hasten to the palace.  The Princess had lost a dangerous amount of weight resulting in becoming pale and frail.  She could barely move let alone sit up or stand on her own two feet.  Her body ached from head to toe, and she suffered from pains in her stomach and in all of her joints.  Her slight was blurry, and her other senses were foggy.

Doctors from every province of the kingdom hurried to the King’s Court in the palace, each one bringing his own set of herbs and remedies.  One by one, they were ushered into the Princess’s chambers.  Some of them succeeded in bringing the Princess partial relief, but soon afterward, she would begin to feel the pain in another part of her body.  When it seemed as though all hope was lost, a plain-looking simple peasant requested permission to enter the palace gates.  The palace guards berated him.  “I am a doctor,” the peasant insisted, “and the King has summoned all doctors.  I am sure that I have the remedy for the princess!”  The palace guards, being both highly skeptical of the peasant doctor and very wary of the King’s wrath, decided it would be best to allow the peasant doctor inside.

The peasant doctor examined the Princess.  He placed his finger on her tongue and then turned to the King and said: “Your Majesty, please summon the cook and the governess immediately.”  Although the peasant doctor’s request seemed a bit odd, the King commanded the Captain of the Guard to immediately summon the cook and the governess.  When they arrived, the peasant doctor began to examine them: “What have you been feeding the Princess?”  they both gave him a long, detailed answer.  The peasant doctor shook his head and replied: “Now tell me the truth her in the presence of the King.  What have you been giving the Princess to drink?”  All eyes turned to the cook and the governess who had been secretly conspiring against the King’s only daughter.  They stammered and hesitated in their answer but were finally prodded to speak when the Captain of the Guard waved his deadly saber in front of their noses.  “The Princess has been drinking salt water,” they both answered.

As the two conspirators were led away, the peasant doctor smiled and said to the King: “Your Majesty, the Princess will now be healthy once again in a day or two!”  He then gave the Princess a glass of cool, refreshing mountain spring water.  Her eyes began to glisten, and the color began to return to her face.  As she continued to drink the mountain spring water, she was completely cured in a short period of time.

In this parable, the Princess is symbolic of the soul while the cook and the governess are symbolic of the body.  The saltwater is symbolic of the general evil the nations of the world attempt to cause Am Yisrael to engage in, this engagement being a deliberate attempt to cause Am Yisrael to abrogate its Covenant with Hashem.  The fresh spring mountain water is symbolic of the Torah, the general correction that maintains our Covenant with Hashem.  Whether conspiracies of evil come at us from either the outside world or from our own inner world, may each of us always look to the Torah for the cure that will keep us healthy both in body and in spirit.

 

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784