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The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
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Zackary Berger
Published/Copyright:
April 23, 2021
Abstract
One of the best-known principles of halakha is that Shabbat is violated to save a life. Who does this saving and how do we know that a life is in danger? What categories of illness violate Shabbat and who decides? A historical-sociological analysis of the roles played by Jew, non-Jew, and physician according to the approach of “medical cosmology” can help us understand the differences in the approach of the Shulchan Aruch compared to later decisors (e.g., the Mishnah Berurah). Such differences illuminate how premodern medical triage coexisted with a different halakhic understanding than that of the biomedical age.
Published Online: 2021-04-23
Published in Print: 2017-12-20
© 2017 by Academic Studies Press, Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Table of Contents
- From the Guest Editor
- ESSAYS
- Re-Presenting Judaic Law: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Popular Guides to Halakha and Their Significance
- Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
- Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
- From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew
- Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
- The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
- The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Its Impact in Hungary and Beyond
- A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2016, 270 pages
- Oded Porat, Sefer B’rit ha-Menuh . a (Book of Covenant of Serenity): Critical Edition and Prefaces [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Hotza’at ha-Kibbutz ha-me’uh . ad, 2016. 601 pages
- Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds. Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 368 pages
- Sara Davidson, The December Project. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014. 193 pages
- Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Table of Contents
- From the Guest Editor
- ESSAYS
- Re-Presenting Judaic Law: Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg’s Popular Guides to Halakha and Their Significance
- Halakhic Guidance for Soldiers: The Emergence of a New Corpus
- Immodest Modesty: The Emergence of Halakhic Dress Codes
- From Ideology to Halakhah: Ultra-Orthodox Opposition to Modern Hebrew
- Preambles: An Insight into Rabbi Avraham Danzig’s Haye Adam
- The Medical Cosmology of Halakha: The Expert, the Physician, and the Sick Person on Shabbat in the Shulchan Aruch
- The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and Its Impact in Hungary and Beyond
- A Matter of Life and Death: The Halakhic Discussion of Suicide as a Philosophical Battleground
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Adam Afterman, “And They Shall Be One Flesh”: On the Language of Mystical Union in Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2016, 270 pages
- Oded Porat, Sefer B’rit ha-Menuh . a (Book of Covenant of Serenity): Critical Edition and Prefaces [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Hotza’at ha-Kibbutz ha-me’uh . ad, 2016. 601 pages
- Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds. Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 368 pages
- Sara Davidson, The December Project. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2014. 193 pages
- Contributors
