Q&A: Should I Follow Maimonides Medical Advice? Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

uh the rambam in Hil in the mishna Torah devotes around two chapters to medical advice the rambam gives advice regarding diet regarding exercise uh the types of foods you should eat the types of foods you don't eat and the rambam knew this stuff because in addition uh to everything he was a doctor so the interesting question is are we should we follow the medical advice that's the mishna Torah so let me make a very interesting observation there's actually quite a lot of medical advice in the gorra itself which the rambam does not follow so the issue is if the rambam does not follow the medical advice in the gorah then why should we follow the medical advice in the rambam apparently the rambam's position was that when the sages talk when the talk about matters of Health they are not speaking as Bal they are not speaking from the perspective of God giving them something at sin Etc they are speaking as learned scientists of the world meaning it's based on the scientific knowledge of the world and even though enti where the generations go down we understand that scientific knowledge can change and our medical understandings can be different and may be superior not always to that of the past so in that sense the notion that you know the medical information in the gamorra or the medical information in the ramban is somehow a Hal for the most part is absolutely not true and when it in other words there is a you got to safeguard your health that is a but the particular way that you Safeguard your health is not a Hal question it is a factual question that will be determined by medicine and science that's the simple understanding of things however I do want to say that in spite of the fact that the rambam's medical advice is not a that you have to follow because it's just based on his understanding of medicine going back to the 12th century going back to the 1100s in point of fact modern science has confirmed a lot of what the rambam has said uh the rambam number one was one of the first who talked about the vital importance of nutrition and and the idea of prevention of illness not just curing sickness and the importance of exercise so those foundational ideas in preserving your health the rambam articulated and even his diet there is a diet book out there I don't remember what it's called but it's like the rambam's diet or something it's it's kind of adapting the rambam's diet to you know modern food or whatever so it's a little bit of a tricky question if you're asking me how logically do I have to follow the rambam's medical advice the answer is no however that doesn't mean there may not be a great deal of wisdom in it and therefore one should look into it you know so it is a wonderful thing when we can look in our Torah sources and even get this practical information as to how we uh take care of ourselves by the way I got to tell you one story just appro of nothing but just reminds me of a story that dakov ketki uh was a person who was very very mock bit on his health in the sense that you know he only ate that that which was healthy you know in other words everything was directed uh not just for Tia or not just for pleasure or enjoyment everything was directed towards what would be beneficial to keep him healthy to be an EV Hashem so once uh he was put on a diet because when you're older your metabolism slows up a little bit so he was put on a diet and what happened was he was rapidly losing weight too quickly was is not good so he went to the doctor and the doctor was very concerned Why have you lost so much weight what's going on and Yakov says I don't know I follow your diet exactly exactly to the Spoonful so the doctor started laughing oh that's the problem you see I know everybody cheats on a diet so I give a caloric diet that is only 50% of what you're supposed to eat because I figure whatever diet I give people are going to double it so if I give somebody a 3,000 calorie diet they're going to eat 6,000 so I figured what you need to eat every day and I gave you a diet for half of that figuring you were going to double it like everybody else but he didn't know rakov when the doctor tells rakov this is what you eat rakov only eats what the doctor said he should eat so as a result rakov was losing too much weight and the doctor had to double the description to correspond with rak's koric needs this is uh this is actually a very high madrea we don't necessarily think about this as AEM but it actually is that a person makes all of these decisions based on what will maximize the health of my body in order in order to serve Hashem to Davin to learn to have clear mind like nothing else enters into my decisionmaking process other than what will facilitate my that is a a very very high M thank you for listening to this awesome production to find out more and to partner in our mission please visit o.edu