My wife and I know a frum, chassidic family where the wife is very much opposed to the use of modern medicine, and uses it only in extreme measures. Let me give you an example: as far as I know, this family does not vaccinate their children, the wife, when she was ill with a serious illness, used only natural remedies and let the illness progress significally before getting treatment.
This brings me to the following news article:
(IsraelNN.com) Dov Ber Holtzberg, the four-year-old son of murdered Chabad emissaries to Mumbai, India, Rabbi Gavriel Noach and Rivki Holtzberg died at a Jerusalem hospital during the predawn hours of Tuesday from Tay-Sachs disease. The Holtzbergs lost their first son to the disease at the age of three.
Yes, I know that it's bad to speak about the deceased, and yes, the story is heart-wrenching. However, given how much information there is on "Jewish" genetic diseases, the Dor Yesharim service (among others), and the fact that they already had one child with Tay-Sachs, why do people have so much bitachon and so little hishtadlut?
I am not saying that this wonderful couple, may G-d avenge their death, should not have never gotten married, chas v'halila. However, given the fact that they knew that both of them were carriers for Tay-Sachs after the birth of their first child, why not exercise caution, and not rely on providence? And yes, I know that "caution" is a very light word for that; however, does it warrant the misery they and their relatives had to endure? Note that there's a one in four chance to have a Tay-Sachs baby if both parents are carriers - not one in a million.
Why not take a chance to prevent more misery? Isn't there already too much misery in the world?
I'm just puzzled by this.
And again, I would like to say to Moshe - the only survivor of this family:
"Hamakom Yenachem Otcha B'Toch Avelei Tzion veYerushalaim."
2 comments:
If you start down the trail of deciding which diseases are too much to risk and which diseases are not too much to risk, you start down the road to conflicting fractious groups all putting out their views and trying to bend people to them.
It is between the people mating and anyone else THEY choose to consult with. Obviously those in need of considering the religious versus realistic medical issues would be Orthodox rabbis. Should they go to the rabbis and the rabbis have a firm understanding their own minds made up freely on this with all information in hand, then if the couple confers, they might be exposed to the view that screening is a good idea.
Since we're doing such work with genomes right now, it might be soon that we can clone sperm and egg cells from the original to Tay-Sachs free copies, and then follow the normal invitro procedures to give the couple a child "scrubbed" of the bad genetic material which stops the spread of it and lets them have a healthy child.
It is possible that the eldest child was not diagnosed when they conceived their second child. Symptoms of infantile Tay-Sachs begin around 6 months but often goes undiagnosed until 12 months.
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