YOUR
TO SAVINGS AND EVENTS
GOT BACK PAIN? DON'T MAKE THESE MISTAKES At-a-glance • Back pain is one of the most common health complaints across the globe, and the No. 1 cause of job disability. It’s also one of the most common reasons triggering opioid dependence • The American College of Physicians’ updated treatment guidelines for acute and chronic low back pain sidesteps medication as a first-line treatment and recommends non-drug therapies instead • Exercise and functional movement are the most effective prevention and treatment strategies for most types of back pain According to the Gemura [Sanhedrin 107b], there was no aging process until Avrohom and no disease until Yakov. According to Mefarshim, death came instantly through a sneeze, returning to Hashem the “breath of life” breathed in through the nostrils at creation (Breishis 2:7). This is the origin of responding with expressions meaning “To your health!” when someone sneezes.
rooted in both theology and history. In many religions in ancient times, and still in some today, the idea of medical treatment was anathema, even heresy. Disease, accident and deformity were considered no less parts of Hashem’s creation than human beings themselves. Medical treatment was considered meddling with Hashem’s work and will. Yiddishkeit generally views medical treatment positively, even as an obligation, based on verses such as Shemos 21:19, commanding a injuring party to “surely heal” the person he has hurt, and Devarim 4:15: “Take very good care of yourselves.” the Rambam (the outstanding 12th-century Gaon and philosopher of Spain and North Africa) viewed the provision of medical care as part of the duty to return to a person “anything he has lost”.
Apocryphal or not, disease and injury have accompanied humanity ever since, with the transition from life to death becoming increasingly long and complicated.
Yiddish communities from early on accorded high status to the physician, and many leading rabbis and scholars–from the Talmudic period through the Middle Ages and beyond–were physicians as well, including Rambam. Also, in certain societies, particularly Europe in the Middle Ages and later, medicine was one of the few professions open to Yidden.
Yidden close connection to healing, both as patients and physicians, is ancient and
The prominence of Yidden as medical practitioners, researchers and teachers has | 1
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