Sick and Dying

Hospital-acquired infections killed 48,000 people and ramped up health care costs by $8.1 billion in 2006 alone, according to a new study by Archives of Internal Medicine.

In Israel, in modern Hebrew the hospitals are called Bait Cholim/House of Sickness; the word hospital comes from the word hospice a euphemism for a place to die–sickness and death hidden in sterility. Happy is the person who gets sick and dies at home.

Having to live at any cost robs the next generation and sets a bad example of ego and arrogance. Life is not about how long we live but how well we live–what actions we can proudly take into the next world where what we did is set out before us.

In the middle and the end of the Torah, the Five Books of Moshe are written The Curses, 49 different stages of sickness visited upon the human being to help bring about cleansing and repentance; if one sickness is eliminated a more difficult sickness will take its place. The problem is not sickness, but way we treat sickness as haphazard instead of predicated upon human action.

The Cabala connects Chomim/Sickness to Cholem/Dream; sickness is a nightmare that either passes or is passed–either you live through it or you die. It is said, Doctors were sent into the world to help the Angel of Death.

Plague of Medicine

Norwegians were losing lives to bacteria infection until an aggressive program made it the most infection-free country in the world by cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics.

The Talmud-Book of Law says if we could see the Mazikim/Malicious Sprites we would see them surrounding us everywhere like a wall. We call them germs.

A wise man was once asked why he did not wipe out disease since God would hear his prayers, he answered that one disease would be followed by another. In our modern day doctors think they can outsmart nature, but sickness has more to do with the state of the soul than the state of the body.

Those who understand the workings of creation and the many transmigrations between body and soul let the sickness dictate the outcome; it seems from Norway’s experiment that letting ourselves be sick with the simple sickness is itself preservation from more severe sicknesses.

It is for expedience sake that drugs are implored so we can continue to work at jobs we do not like but are afraid to lose. The natural way of life which the Torah teaches is an combination and interplay between the natural system and the power of prayer–God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is no.

The Cabala adds, what is no in this world is yes in the next world.