Remedy via Segulah\ Parashat Chukat Bilak
In this week's Parsha, Parshas Chukas, we learn about how Klal Yisrael was punished with a plague of serpents. As per Hashem's word, Moshe Rabbeinu set up a copper serpent through which those that were bitten were healed upon gazing at it. [The Mishna in Rosh Hashanah teaches us that it wasn't the sculpture of the snake that healed, rather it was a way to get the sick Jew to look toward the heavens and be cured by Hashem.] This is somewhat similar to that which we learned in last week's Parsha when Aharon HaKohen stopped a plague by offering the Ketores (incense). These are two examples of not-so-conventional medicines and leads us to discuss the Halachic status of such medicinal procedures. Although it is clear that what we'll discuss is not relevant at all to a cure prescribed by Hashem or by Moshe Rabbeinu, the Parsha is being used merely as a segway into the topic.
The Mishna in the 8th perek of Yoma tells us of a Machlokes whether or not one can feed the liver of a rabid dog to a victim of it's bite. This was considered at the time a way to cure the illness thus saving the person's life. The Tanna Kama forbids doing so whereas Rav Masya ben Cheresh allows it. The Rambam in his Pirush HaMishnayos explains that the position of the Tanna Kama, whom the Halachah follows, is that we don't consider such procedures to be actual remedies. Only medicines that are understood logically are considered to be actually medicinal and may be used even if they require chilul Shabbos. In his Moreh Nevuchim the Rambam adds to this that even without chilul Shabbos one is forbidden from using such remedies as they are included in the violation of 'darkei ha'emori', following in the superstitious ways of the Emori.
The Rashba, though, in Teshuvah 413, points out that even in the Moreh Nevuchim itself there seems to be an inconsistency with regard to Segulahs that are tried and true. Also, the Rashba strongly disagrees with the Rambam and says, based on numerous sources in the Gemara, that there is no difference between a medicine that we understand logically and one that works in a Segulah type of way.
The Admas Kodesh (R' Moshe Mizrachi, close to 300 years ago) was asked about a man who would from time to time become completely mad to the point where he would have to be placed in chains so as not to hurt himself. People attested that the cure for such a thing was to feed him meat from a chicken that died naturally, a transgression of the issur of 'neveilah'. After citing the opinion of the Rambam that Segulah based remedies do not allow for transgressing any issur, according to which feeding the 'neveilah' would be forbidden, he writes that since the Rashba and the Ramban disagree and with a convincing argument, the Halachah is like them and it is permitted to use such medication or treatment even if doing so will violate an 'issur' from the Torah.
The Birkei Yosef (the Chidah) (O.H. siman 301) tells of a case where there a certain man who knew how to write a Kamea that would cause a person to regurgitate poison that he swallowed. One Shabbos night a girl swallowed poison and they went to this man to write the Kamea. He wrote it and the girl indeed was saved. On Shabbos day, when people of the Kehillah heard what happened the night before, they began speaking against this man that he was Mechallel Shabbos against the Halachah being that the Kamea was not a conventional medicine. The Birkei Yosef cites from the above Admas Kodesh that it depends on the Machlokes between the Rambam with the Rashba and Ramban. He adds, though, that in such a case where he went ahead and performed the procedure, being that it in fact worked to save the girl's life, it is not considered, after the fact, that he was mechalel Shabbos. He compares this to a case of someone who intended to fish and when he pulled up, drew up instead a drowning child, thus saving the child's life. If in that case when he intended to fish and he saved the child he is not held accountable for his bad intentions surely in our case where he saved the child through good intentions he is not considered to have sinned.
The Birkei Yosef's comparison is quite difficult for two reasons. One is that, in the case of the Segulah, according to the Rambam that we don't believe in their healing power, even after the fact we cannot necessarily attribute the salvation to the Segulah remedy. Secondly, and more difficult, is that in the case of the fish and baby he didn't actually violate any Melachah as opposed to in our case of the Kameah.
One difference that might be agreed upon by the Rashba is that by a Segulah-type remedy we have to have seen that it's actually worked, as opposed to a logical medicine where it could be that the mere logic of it's potency is enough to rely on in order to use it even with chilul Shabbos, see the Ze'er Zahav on the Issur V'Heter Ha'aruch (59,16).
