May a medical student observe a surgery performed on Shabbos? What about a common person who wants to observe it out of curiosity or “entertainment”? R’ Yaakov Wolff, host of Shtark Tank, unpacks a responsum from Rav Yaakov Emden (She’ailas Ya’avetz, no. 41) on this topic and contextualizes it within the broader literature.
Welcome my friends to another episode of shoot first ask questions later today we are joined by rakov wolf and we are going to be talking about an interesting question that came to the attention of Rak of emden whether it is permissible to watch a surgery performed on shabas
Now raka wolf is the host of the Stark tank podcast which focuses on the challenges and opportunity of being a bentor in the workforce he is currently learning in the SMA at carav and in the open University of Israel it is a pleasure to have you with us um I know
It’s probably a bit little bit disorienting to be in the guest seat instead of the host seat but I’ll do my best to help you navigate through um tell us why you chose this cheu of the IIT we’re about to look at what the question is and also I think it’s our
First Chua we’re doing from rakov Emon so so you could let us know a little bit about rev Emon as well okay thank you first of all I just wanted to thank you for having me on and I do want to give you a big shout out of
Moshe for what you’re doing I think there are very fewer if any podcasts in the Torah world that have this unique form of creativity in the podcast format and I really appreciate that I don’t have problems with people recycling their sh and putting them on Spotify but
This is really a unique usage and creative usage and so yes to you for doing this um so I have been fascinated by the world of careers and work since I was a very young kid obviously in our society from the very young age we being
Asked what are you going to do when you grow up and I thought about that question a lot and I came to Yeshiva and had a bit of a shifting perspective on things I joined the col without any real plans for my future and the pandemic hit
Which sort of shifted what we thought we knew about the world of work and careers so what is the torah’s view of work the torah’s view of careers these major decisions that we all are making throughout our lives with regards to careers what is The torah’s Voice on
These issues so that’s how I came to start my podcast where I interview B Tor in the workforce and hear how they navigate the different values that drive them and in parallel to that what I’ve been doing is I have been researching a lot of the sugas about how the Torah
Looks at work so you know do am I supposed to love what I do is working a curse the mishna says and Par says Wella was cursed with regards to his work so all these issues are things that I’ve been working at unpacking and this chuva
Is part of that research it comes on um it this Chua part of that research and we see some interesting clashes between the value of work and other values so if we want to try to understand what the t’s view of work is well what happens when work needs coincide or conflict
With other needs that are Hally valuable so in this case it’s chabis we have a case of H shabis where a student in the medical school of gettenberg I probably got that wrong getting something uh probably not gettysb though I’m sorry probably not Gettysburg though not Gettysburg right a German medical
Student name of Benyamin wolf Ginsburg not related to me in any way sends a Shila to rakov Emin who I will introduce just briefly he was a great RV in the early uh and middle of the 18th century in Germany he was the son of the and so he
Gets the Shila about medical students on chabis he was asked about a specific question that the med students were expected to come on chabis and do a surgery or a postpartum dissection of postmortem I’m sorry a postmortem dissection of a dog on chabis and the
Sha thought he had a few SARS to be make and to allow himself to take part in this surgery where they were basically taking apart a dog on chabas and the chuva is a long long chuva he goes into a lot of nitty greedy about hilos Mah
Mah of the knives Mah of the dog cutting things stripping things measuring things a lot of different things that Ral goes into in this very very long chuva but what I like to focus on in the next few minutes is a very very interesting section at the end and then he has at
The very end another interesting section which I don’t think the time will allow us to really go into but we will talk about that as well so again we have this long Chua about shabis about the permiss the permissibility of doing a surgery on chabis and then we have two interesting
Sections at the end one of which we’re going to really unpack and the other which we’re gonna reference briefly right just to clarify so the question is not necessarily the Performing of the surgery unless you know there Pak neish right in front of you and you’re the one
Who has to do it but the question is the student as part of his education needs to observe how a surgery is performed and they didn’t have I guess Albert Einstein College yet especially with the free tuition I hear that they’re offering these days um to accommodate
These things for Jewish students so the question is can he go on shopas and by the way this is a question you hear all the time about Jewish Orthodox kids who want to go into sports professions as well and the question of can they play the game on chabas and they’re trying to
Figure out all these different huic workarounds but then there’s kind of like that glaring overarching question about the spirit of shabas which I imagine rev enden is also going to have to elaborate on exactly exactly so the showel actually wanted to do this surgery this dissection of the dead dog
And that’s really the bulk of the chuva but then when I said at the end it gets interesting is when RAC of endan goes beyond what was just asked of him about doing the surgery and he says not only can you not do the surgery but you can’t
Even go and watch the surgery and I’ll quote here he says the guy who I love as if my son if you’re with me and you’re listening to me stand far away don’t even go and watch why so he’s not super clear here but he says something about the the special
Quality of the day will prohibit you from going and watching on chabis and then he goes on to say this isn’t just something that is user for anybody no no no if your friends enjoy going and watching a surgery that’s great good for them but for you this is your profession
And this is your trade and he finishes off this paragraph by saying so what’s going on here it’s not super clear but what I think is going on here is he is referencing an idea which is elaborated on very beautifully by the ran in parar based on the P by Rash
Where it says shabbaton we supposed to make the day of rash shabbaton it says the ran the is telling USA there’s an idea of being shabis so I don’t know if you’re like me growing up in a mon Orthodox Community there was always the question could I play baseball on chabas
Could I play soccer on chabus could I wear my shorts on chabis afternoon I I never asked that but my friends asked that so our parents always would tell us well is it chabas stick or not and we always thought it was just our parents doing you know doing their thing but the
Ran actually says no no no this is a Dinda that kazal used this to make certain xeros to make sure the day of chabas was shabis stic now the ran inside he actually focuses it not on baseball and soccer on Chavis afternoon but actually on work and business and
Mishar and Shook and all those things that I don’t have the in front of me right now but that’s really the thrust of what he’s saying that it’s important to make shabas shabis by avoiding matters of work and trade and professionalism right and I think it’s a it’s an interesting distinction I think
He quotes the the ramban which comes up in the schar against reading history books and newspapers on Chavis though I always I you know your distinction that you’re bringing out from of Ed reminds me that I’ll talk to people on chabas um part of my un chabus during the Wall
Street Journal but when I look at the business section uh I am just a Rabbi I know very little about money I just look for interesting articles to read for my ug but many Baba him I know um they may be looking because they actually work in
Finance and they want to see how certain stocks uh have performed and they want the latest news and that’s actually the distinction that he he makes in that paragraph that you quoted from he says that some people are doing it D they said you know they didn’t have
Television they didn’t have a lot of interesting things to watch back then say Oh there’s a surgery taking place I remember as a kid you know so I grew up in the more yiva community so whenever there was like a police officer who was parked outside of the Sho all the kids
Would go up and say is that a real gun is that a Walky you know like they’d ask him all these questions and bite his ear off so they didn’t have much to do back then they were pretty bored and he actually says that and he says for the general
Populace if there’s a surgery taking place on chabas and they’re watching it be done I don’t see any terrible things coming out of it and if I don’t know of any iser I’m not going to start digging around to Asser something that doesn’t appear to be user for the general
Populace but that’s when it’s for recreational purposes but what you’re pointing out here is he’s doing it um you know I guess we could say the difference between um watching TV on chabas which has Asha Milsa issues also of making noise in the environment versus maybe studying my textbook for a test on
Chavis yeah what you’re saying is absolutely correct and I would just point the listener if they want to unpack this a little more the yavis actually quotes the rambam two paragraphs later and that is a very interesting ROM in pnos an interesting discussion about the sh him in s so that
That rambam is is a fascinating one and is also dealt with Rak later so it seems to be here he’s specifically touching on another issue which is more about the Kad of shabas which is connected right we can not not going to go down the rabbit hole right now but he seems to
Say that this is about and he also by the way he makes reference to toam he sort of makes reference to earlier in the Chua what is he talking about earlier in the Chua so what I think he’s actually referencing is saying very interesting and it’s
Important to set this up before we go into the reception which is that a few paragraphs earlier he talked about about measurements taking measurements so if you’re taking out a dog and you’re taking a part its heart and you want to measure how how big it is how much it
Weighs all these things so measuring is usab because of but is not such a bad it’s not such a big deal it’s but because it’s only a lighter so is that’s a and also so maybe if you’re taking measurements getting your professional degree maybe that’s considered so there says very clearly no
You’re not allowed to do anything on chabis that is for the purpose of your professional training but you might ask there’s a that appears a couple times in which says that is an to deal with your own personal dealings on but the so what are so I’ll have the here
I’ll read it you for one moment it says as follows so on the one hand said you can’t do anything to train yourself professionally on shab but on the other hand the says writes no no no no when the G says that’s the name of the game you’re
Allowed to make so that could be between a boy and a girl that sh could also be between a teacher and a prodigy and that for the if it were just St you can’t do it but because it’s for panasa and P panasa is important and we don’t want
People to go around stealing all day so you’re allowed according to Emin to make a between a teacher and a student for the purposes of panasa but there’s absolutely no head there says he says lar absolutely no head there to deal with any form or professional training on chabas so
That’s it is not chabis it’s not appropriate it’s not okay to do anything that will train you professionally on chabas on reab interns going to train on chabas right you you had the broader question also of course of making parnasa off lior which I’m sure that’s a
Suya that uh you will be addressing or have addressed in your uh Shark Tank podcast yes yes for sure that’s a big issue but that’s that’s a whole another rabbit hole and maybe we can do a couple more episodes together this is a lot of
Fun and I’d love to do some more so that’s Rea emin’s and he’s even quoted laa I’ll just start going so before we before we jump into the the reception there there are a few lines actually just from that pie and that I thought were worth pointing out so one
Is that you did mention the rambam uh it’s at the end of the paragraph in my piece he quotes So This is fascinating because the ran is one of the big proponents of learning and T and all those nice catchphrases learning about the metaphysics and the Sciences nonetheless
He says shabas is designated for Torah certainly to learn about Mala which is inherently an user act that’s taking place and also what’s very interesting is the the beginning of that paragraph um he says gura I’m not sure if there’s a pre-existing gazer he kind of gives examples of different gazer but it’s
Almost like he’s making um how did you read this did he make up his own gazer here that you can watch your surgery lest you come to perform this surgery on Chamas is he bwing the lon of gazer I I find it fascinating you know just to to give you an analogy uh
There’s that whole debate about bicycles on chabas which you know you have the issues of you have the issues of O fine but you have the benishai who um for you know controversially gave a heter for it but then you you see the tits elzer who
I think even uses a l also of Gaza there a gazer that maybe you know similar idea that you might come to take the branch off and uh hit the horse we’re gonna make other gazer maybe you’ll drive into dirt and make aitz so is he making a new
Gazer over here not to watch a surgery I’m trying to make sense of what he’s doing yeah I I I was not sure about that also I I don’t have a great answer I the way I read it was that his main prohibition is based off of which is the
Paragraph that we originally read and in addition to that he says it’s really just inappropriate because you have to be careful of these things and all theas going around around you might end up doing it and also the r he throws in there which is also we don’t
Necessarily like the ram so I think those two things the Ram’s of only Torah shabis and this idea where he says be careful because there are so many m going on I read those as sort of pieces of wise Torah advice and the actual thrust is really the right which is also
Just fascinating that he doesn’t actually invoke the words of unless I missed it maybe I’ll do a bar check did you see it’s funny because that he doesn’t even say the words anyway right I’m introducing just to be clear is because I think it’s the the thrust of things but also when he
References back to earlier in the Chua and early in chuva he talks about medida and that’s where I believe he’s referencing back so medida is over in the so that’s where I sort of tie things together but there could be other interpretations as well right it’s a
Long Chua I’m sure he’s made reference to it so okay so we have this um more mmir this more stringent of yit and uh okay so let let’s hear about how it was received by contemporaries or later post gim yeah so the sh on the page in on M
It’s gim and some of the prints he quotes it he says this is that you’re not allowed to go and watch a surgery on CH so you can’t do it and he it but there are multiple Shas that do not accept this this this Pak
And I’m going to focus on two of them and they both have very very interesting directions that they take it and very interesting uh applications both Hally and asically as well so the first one is from a called the it’s in and he says that there’s a
In where the mishna says that if you just hit on a an anvil a hammer on an anvil you’re and the gar ask what do you mean if there’s no metal that you’re actually banging on what’s the issue M of it says maybe because you’re practicing the
Motion like a picture in the bullpen you’re practicing your motion to to hit the to hit the metal and maybe that’s the the answer are you gonna tell me now that even to watch and to be able to learn that way is also that it was part of the of the
Process of making the TSS for the mishun is that they would hit on the actual Tas then they would hit again on the Anvil just to to to flatten or to sharpen the actual Hammer but it was really nothing to do with the training aspect of it so
Here thear has a hav that the training would be and it says no no no no it can’t be now okay it’s not it’s not but maybe it’s so the ques a in who says very clearly no no no no it’s even though often times in chab
When we say we’re talking about but the says that with regards to if it’s just passive and I’m not doing anything so can oftentimes mean and even bring zah from other other postum as well where the TR seems very clear that to watch someone performing a trade in order to learn would
Be and goes on to put another massive POS there the ra says that you’re allowed to trace letters in the air with your finger and says the M even if you’re doing it in order to train yourself to be a Sofer and to know how to write properly and you’re practicing
By tracing fingers tracing letters in the air that would be fine and now it’s interesting to note that the mishura limits this and has some quival with this but in general we see here from the gamar and the SM and the and the I think I mentioned the SM
I’m not sure why could he’s quoted somewhere in there but definitely the based on understanding of that to watch someone do a trade in order to learn is so that seems to be against what was saying was saying that when the gamar when the gamar said you’re allowed
To is only to make but now comes along the no no no no it’s much broader than that anything which is done in order to train yourself for parasa is m is fair game on chabis and I think let me think about one thing for one
Second well I think in terms of the college you know so so what does this mean in terms of um you know I have a test coming up let’s say I’m in college I mean I guess we’ll get to the question who says I’m AOW to go to college to
Begin with right so I I remember a while back I looked at a mlus not M actually my mistake ramosa Feinstein has a uh I don’t want to say famous cuz if someone doesn’t know it’s not famous for them but an iconic Chu on cheating on Regents
So I was looking at other chos um also on the topic of cheating on what you might call secular exams and if I’m not mistaken I think it was through Minasha kleene or someone of that Circle and the question was can I cheat on a college
Exam and he says it’s user to cheat but I have a better question for you what are you doing going to college in the first place it was just like gold I was like waiting for that line to come up um there’s certain Chas like which I could
Rely on you know if I get like the Chua son hugas from shach there’s certain um Personalities in the world of sock that you you if you’re looking for like a certain opinion you know where to look for it so I believe it was ranasha K I
Have to check back my notes so I wonder if there could almost be like a similar kind of question over here about Denny postam raised this question like well what are you doing going to college in the first place a university to study these things so it’s not just the post
Game nowadays Ral of endin in this chuva does the exact same thing at the very end and if you wait on a few more minutes if the listener will bear with us for a few more minutes we will get back to it and and touch on that a
Little bit but it’s not just the M post it was even Rea Emin who after this whole back and forth about hilab says wait a second who let you go to college in the first place and we’ll we’ll talk about an interesting point from there as
Well okay so right so yeah yeah let’s uh let’s wrap up these uh the reception history over here and get to that uh I I like that you know as I said I grew up in the more Yesa Shelt and I remember I went to I’m not going to mention I went
To like a gap year program and there was uh they had like a thing called I think they called it VOD or bam it was something something of that sort and I get there the first night and the person who’s leading who’s conducting who’s one
Of the a the says you know God willing none of you should go to college and if you do why you EV maybe and I was like oh my God what did I get myself into over here I thought I was going to like a mon Orthodox institution um anyway so
Yeah so let’s wrap up the reception history and let’s get to that point yeah so we have the lushai who basically attacks the whole assumption about the iser of having professional training but there is a plack from ofan which takes a completely different direction and says professional training we’re not talking
About professional training here we’re talking about medicine medicine is very very important and he says that a lot of the hatan that are found with regards to can be expanded even much much farther with regards to doctors and medicine he’s quoted in the in Sim sh which
Is where he quotes from says that it’s a to to have the proper medical knowledge in order to be able to heal people and help people and save their lives so therefore to go and watch a surgery will be completely fine and as I said before
It’s much it’s a much broader heter so the Mish says that even the het of the mug to go and watch an um is limited it’s limited to doing it AR it’s limited to doing it to not talking with the person and asking questions but says the with
Regards to a doctor all that is M you can go on on a permanent and and and intentional basis you can talk to the attending surgeon and and and and discuss the different issues with him because this is this is medicine this is important and therefore it’s completely completely mutter and encouraged and
That’s an important point which is uh many times when we have discussion about Toro ma Toro parnasa Torah and secular knowledge there’s a reasonable argument to distinguish between something like the sciences and certainly medicine versus the humanities which includes literature and other things which don’t directly benefit someone’s life in the
Same concrete fashion that studying medicine and surgery would correct and you’re you’re leading right into what we’re going to talk about in a minute but I’ll just point out before we we we swing into that last bit which is that the nishas SA quot as a letter that was written to him but
He adds that told him that a student who’s not yet an active doctor maybe should be M which is a very interesting distinction but because you’re one step removed from the actual healing process he thinks that it’s maybe less permissible he calls it a he says it was
Something which is added by so I’m not gonna pass in for anyone here I do hear that distinction I remember um when I was learning at Yu so we were talking about the question can a cohane go to Medical school and you have the issues
Of T so the argument is like well what do you mean he’s learning to save lives the answer is it’s only do that once you are a doctor but if it’s a mitzah right now for you to be a medical student then by that logic you myself every all of our listeners everybody
Should be to go to medical school because then we’ll learn how to save people’s lives so clearly you’re not it’s not incumbent upon you until you actually have the knowledge and training so maybe there’s some kind of Spar to distin between someone who already knows versus someone who just wants to get to
That category right just do you hear the sound in my background here not at all you are good okay I’ll try to focus um okay so that’s rman now I was thinking to myself how do we square rman with end Rak endon really attacked this as completely
Professional he didn’t give any of these of going to medical school and making that that giving it that that special status special importance so is there Aus here so I think there’s actually no M and in order to understand a little better you have to go to that juicy part
At the very end of the chuva which you which you which you led me into before where rakov says to this person who he obviously had great love and and affinity for he says hold on a second who told you can go to college in the
First place and he has a very long interesting section and we’re not going to go into the whole thing he first talks about in general uh the study of philosophy which back then was part of Medicine he speaks about going to a secular University he says well maybe
The is okay but the atmosphere that you’re learning it in is certainly not okay and we know K were very careful with all these zeros that we shouldn’t become like the gim so those are all topics which he goes into but then he has a very important line he says look
College is really really bad but studying The Sciences of medicine is not so bad or maybe it’s even okay and he gives a couple reasons one of which is based on the famous rambam that by understanding K’s world then you’re able to better appreciate him and love him
And then he says you’re also able to help people you’re also able to help people by making them get better but his L here is very important let me just find it one second he writes as follows he says even though it might seem that the true natural science is not with us
Anymore so he says that the true science the really the true understanding of how K’s World works and how to really heal people is something we don’t really have nowadays we have some sort of weak imitation and still he says it’s still important it’s still a Mitzvah it still
Has great value but that is how he frames the discussion so I think the modern day equivalent of what Rak is describing is let’s say you would have someone nowadays who works for a pharmaceutical company and they’re trying to produce a drug that will cure cancer so that’s a very important thing
To do and I would highly recommend anyone has a skill set to do that to try to do that but are we going to tell this person who has a one in 100,000 chance of getting that magical cure of cancer that he is able to start being makab
Says re absolutely not absolutely not so I think that when we put reakin in his historical context and there are there have been essays written about this he lived in a time where medicine was at a very interesting Crossroads it was 200 years ago 250 years ago the very early
Beginnings of modern science were starting to to to develop there was still a very strong belief in alchemy the various philosophical debates uh influenced how people understood nature and understood the body and understood medicine so there was a lot of very very interesting controversy and developments around the field of medicine inal end’s
Time but the bottom line is that it wasn’t a very trustworthy source of healing people and saving their lives so if that’s the case sayar v end in I can’t tell you that you’re doing some great Mitzvah doab by going to see it on
Chabas is it a good thing to do yes is it helpful yes but he was saying it’s a very you know it’s a it’s a long shot that you’re actually going to use this science to help someone save their lives because the scientific knowledge back then was so unclear was so muddled was
So underdeveloped so therefore he takes his stance Mas 250 years later he completely trusted in science he understood that most of what we have today is completely unbelievable and amazing and we’re so lucky to have such qualified doctors that can do such tremendous things mamash like unbelievable you know
Sitting here now and every day we hear of of of unbelievable things in the war in Isel and the doctors are able to save lives and medics in the field are able to save lives with all these different Technologies so that we live in this in this generation but I think that there’s
Really no steer between and R emob looked at the scientific knowledge of his day and says I can’t give you a head of of of medicine and or anything of that source of that sort we can talk about professionalism and you’re in a good field to be a professional but I
Can’t really give you any other hatan besides for professionalism and that’s what he that’s his Direction says nowadays things are different medicine is a very important mechanism of and therefore he’s going to be way more M than Rak I think that’s a great point which is the msas the facts on the
Ground that we’re facing with shalan Orbach versus rakon were completely different but in principle they could be on the same page rmon might be more lenient Visa what we’re looking at today and when if was living during the times for yag of emden maybe he would be more
Mmir in that regard so that’s a very excellent point um in our last few minutes that we have together is there anything else that we should know either about this General debate or just about the good work that you’re doing uh in terms of the broader theme uh of Stark
Tank and uh the message that we want to get from this chuva so two things first of all again I’m not passing anyone Hala here but I think that it’s certainly Che clarify we never do halaka here on the podcast so but I appreciate that but just to to to
Sum it up the Misha and and others are clear that chabas is a very special day and it’s obviously ideal to make shabas a holy special day as possible I think that is very important and we shouldn’t be looking for loopholes necessarily we should try to lean in to the shabis and
Appreciate the tremendous Mata of chabis I think that’s something that people sometimes tend to maybe not give its proper due and so you know the M says it I’m not the first and the r others much greater than me say it so that was just one party note that the N gabas are
Super important and super super uh fun to learn but that doesn’t that shouldn’t let us lose sight of the broader picture of how special opportunity chabas is to learn Torah to be with our family to connect with K baru so that’s I guess one parting thought on this Su that I
Think should be kept in mind and kept in the in the frame as well uh and as far as Stark tin goes so look I think that work is very is a very very central part of everyone’s life anyone who doesn’t have a super rich great grandfather they left him with a
Massive rucha has to work it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a reality that we all deal with with but I think that people in my very limited experience they don’t necessarily dig deep enough into really understanding what it is that work means to them what their values are with
Regards to work how they fashion their life with their work that has its central place but not too Central a place so in my very limited experience people don’t necessarily dig deep enough to really understand and by the way I think also in the Torah world we have
These very shallow slogans about uh working whether it’s people who will just throw and therefore I should go and and work my entire life until 3:00 in the morning or on the other side of the spectrum people uh throw out these shallow slogans about about uh that that
That that put down the value of working so these are interesting sigas and I hope to unpack them a little more I’m actually batem launching the 10th episode of Stark next week but in addition to the interviews with the role models which is the bread and butter
What we’re doing we’re also working to develop some interesting content which Dives a little more into the maros and the ashas and theas around work so I would uh love to have all your listeners hop and over to our feet and check it out and hopefully those exciting things
Will be coming soon definitely encourage our listeners to go out go over and check out Shark Tank uh the more Torah podcast out there the better and uh you know you’re reminding me I hope this doesn’t fall to the category you were describing I remember when I was
Learning in shal ofm so there was a Ru hutner that was brought to my attention I think it was by rev ymer who’s now the rosh Shiva there in which there was a letter to someone who felt there was a contradiction between his work life and
His religious life and uh he said it’s about living a broad life a double life and I think that’s really what you’re digging into is to look at it holistically down a Ben toer no matter what context I’m in and God should uh God willing give you the ability to be
Matak in your new podcast and uh I’ll make sure myself to hop over there and listen to some episodes as well so wol and continue to thank you