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Before the long תוכחה, the parsha has a brief description of the good things that will happen if we listen to ה׳:
The Ramban takes this as the starting point to a long essay on the nature of אמונה and how we should look at illness:
And therefore, if we listen to ה׳ then we will not need doctors:
And if that is true, then if we do fall ill, we should not go to the doctor; we should go to the rabbis to learn how to do תשובה, and ה׳ will heal us.
And we have an example of exactly this in תנ״ך:
The Ramban says this clearly indicates that going to the doctor was a mistake.
If illness comes from G-d, then the response to illness should be prayer, not medicine. Why are we not all Christian Scientists? It is a logical conclusion, from the assumptions that we’ve made.
But that’s not what the halacha says! Jews have always been doctors, even the Ramban himself:
And we learn that doctors are OK from the Torah itself:
The Ramban explains:
So ideally, we should respond to illness with אמונה. If we can’t, then we are allowed to go to a doctor, and the doctor can treat us. But it’s not a good thing.
Rabbeinu Behaye ibn Paquda has a different opinion:
In other words, part of our אמונת ה׳ is to accept that ה׳ created the world and the laws of nature, and refusing to rely on those laws reflects a lack of faith.
This dialectic, between what we call בטחון and השתדלות, is a reflection of a מחלוקת in חז״ל:
And finding the right balance between those is part of our task in life. Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky has a fascinating perspective on this:
In other words, there is a mitzvah of יישוב העולם (what we nowadays call תיקון עולם). Planting and harvesting, and even going to the doctor, is part of that mitzvah. It’s not just an expression of faith in ה׳'s creation of the physical world, but our obligation to be part of that physical world. בחקתי תלכו includes (ירמיהו לג:כה) חֻקּוֹת שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ. We have a halachic obligation to respect the laws of nature.