Q&A: The Jaundice Story According to Jewish Law
The Jaundice Story According to Jewish Law
Question
Hello,
Rabbi brings up the jaundice story with a yeshiva student in the context of what a reasonable person should believe, etc.
I want to know whether this involves a halakhic problem of "do not practice soothsaying" or "do not practice divination." If there’s a column devoted to this, I’d be happy if you could point me to it.
My inclination is to think that whatever can be explained, even if it isn’t really accepted in the scientific world, and even if it really is nonsense, there’s no problem with it, because I’m not claiming that I’m doing it through magic. But I’d be glad to know your view.
Answer
I don’t recall a column about this. I wouldn’t make it depend on the question of whether there is an explanation or not. There are scientific processes for which we have no explanation—would that make them prohibited? It should be made to depend on the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) over whether there is any real substance to those kinds of powers or not. According to Maimonides, anything that works is not prohibited. But according to Nachmanides and those who follow his view, there could be a prohibition even with something that works. In other words, it may depend on whether it works, not on whether there is an explanation.
Discussion on Answer
All these prohibitions are a puzzle.
I understand. The question is who gets to decide whether something works. Take amulets, for example: I don’t believe in them, but I assume a Breslov Hasid does believe in them, and I also assume he thinks he’s a reasonable person, so I can’t tell him that a decision like that has to come from reasonable people 😀
Maybe it really is an individual prohibition?