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Complementary therapies and traditional Judaism
1Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Services, Queens Hospital Center, Jamaica, NY 11432, USA.
The Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, New York
|April 1, 1999
Summary
Jewish tradition mandates healing, encouraging patients to seek medical care. Complementary therapies like prayer are permissible when supplementing, not replacing, conventional scientific medicine.
Area of Science:
- Medical Ethics
- Religious Studies
- Jewish Tradition
Background:
- Jewish law obligates physicians to heal and patients to seek medical care.
- Traditional Jewish perspectives encompass a range of healing practices.
- The integration of religious beliefs with medical treatment is a key consideration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the role of Jewish tradition in patient and physician obligations regarding healing.
- To examine the permissibility of complementary therapies within Jewish medical ethics.
- To clarify the relationship between prayer, faith healing, and conventional medical treatment in Judaism.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of Jewish legal and ethical texts.
- Review of traditional Jewish practices related to health and healing.
- Examination of theological perspectives on divine healing and human intervention.
Main Results:
- Physicians have a religious obligation to provide healing, and patients must seek it.
- Complementary therapies, including prayer and faith healing, are sanctioned as supplements to, not substitutes for, traditional medical therapy.
- Confidence in divine healing through prayer is encouraged when used in conjunction with scientific medicine.
Conclusions:
- Jewish tradition supports a comprehensive approach to healing, integrating religious observance with scientific medical practice.
- The ethical framework emphasizes the primacy of conventional medical treatment.
- Religious practices can be incorporated to support patient well-being without undermining evidence-based medicine.