Igros Moshe (YD IV #36.12) Question: How can the study of medine be prohibited since a number of Rishonim were doctors? Answer You need to know that those Rishonim who were involved in medicine did not go to medical school or college. They were self educated from books or they served an apprenticeship with a renown doctor in his house. . In addition they studied only medicine and did not need to learn other subjects. As a consequence they lost very little time from Torah study. This approach is not relevant today since it requires attending medical school and studying subjects other than medicine. and that also has to be done at medical school. All of this requires interruption of Torah study and to remain there most of the day with people who have no connection at with Torah. Consequently the study of medicine today is not relevant to most of those who want to be bnei Torah and also talmidei chachomim. Even if you can find individuals who are talmidei chachomim and also doctors in reality they have not achieved their full potential in Torah. In addition even in the field of medicine they have not accomplished their full potential unless medicine is their principal focus in which case eventually there will be a degradation of their Torah knowledge. Even though it is possible that there will be unique individuals who as doctors will also be genuine Torah scholars this is clearly not relevant for everyone and one should not assume automatically that he will be able to accomplish this level. .
That's probably why rambam found time to study astronomy and philosophy, on top of medicine, and talmud Torah
ReplyDeleteI doubt Rav Moshe, zt"l, knew much about the history of medicine. If he did, he'd have known that medicine back before about 100 years ago was mostly the study of anatomy with a little bit of physiology and some pharmacology (arsenic for tooth pain, anyone?) thrown in. You didn't need to go to an actual medical school although those existed. But again, the comment about not reaching one's full Torah potential sounds patronizing. Seriously, would the Jewish world be a better place if Dr Abraham Abraham and R' Dr. Avraham Steinberg cloistered themselves away in a kollel somewhere and spent their lives learning hilchos Uktzin?
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