I was sick in bed with a bad flu this past week—totally out of commission. I felt so frustrated knowing I had so many things to do, yet I was unable to do most of them. A doctor was able to prescribe medication that made me more comfortable.

My good friend, Dr. Chaim Moeller, asked me the following question on this week’s parsha. In Parshas Mishpatim, the pasuk says, “verapo yerapei—and he shall surely heal you.” The Gemara says this teaches us that Hashem grants a doctor permission to administer medicine and perform surgery to heal a patient. We don’t find other professions where permission is required from Hashem to fix something broken. A car mechanic or roofer doesn’t need special permission from the Torah to fix a car or roof. Why does a doctor need specific permission to heal a patient?

I believe the answer is based on a concept we discussed last week. The Gemara says that there are 248 positive mitzvos which correspond to 248 limbs in the human body and the Zohar says that the 365 negative commandments correspond to the 365 sinews inside the human body. Rabbi Chaim Volozhin says that if a person is sick in a certain area, that indicates there is a spiritual malady or deficiency in that area.

In the time of the prophets, when people got sick, they would go to a prophet to inquire what their spiritual deficiency was and what specific area they needed to work on in order to be healed. We don’t have prophets today. The closest we recently had was Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, who often told people with various ailments to learn a certain segment of Gemara that dealt with that body part. For example, Rav Chaim would tell a person with pain in their feet to learn perek “Keitzad haregel”—a Gemara portion relating to feet.

The reason a doctor needs special permission to administer medicine is that the doctor is just addressing the physical ailment without addressing the spiritual root and source of the ailment. This bypassing of the spiritual root cause requires special permission from Hashem. However, a broken car or roof does not indicate a spiritual malady; therefore, the repairman does not require special permission to fix the broken item.

The Gemara relates the 365 sinews to the 365 days in the year and the 248 limbs to the 248 positive mitzvos. In total, there are 613 mitzvos. The gematria of the word Torah equals 611. That’s the number of mitzvos commanded by Moshe. By adding the first two of the Ten commandments, which Hashem personally told the Jewish nation (the other eight Moshe told on behalf of Hashem), the total equals 613.

Why do we add the first two of the Ten commandments to equal 613? The Maharsha teaches an incredible concept. The Sages say that the Ten Commandments include all 613 mitzvos. Some say even more: that all 613 commandments are included in the first two commandments. How so? The first commandment, “I am Hashem your God who took you out of Mitzrayim,” is a positive commandment, to recognize Hashem. The second commandment, “Do not have foreign gods,” is a negative commandment. These two mitzvos effectively encompass all the positive and all the negative mitzvos.

The Gemara says that people are advised to focus on a few mitzvos as they are the key to all mitzvos. The prophet Habakkuk said, Tzaddik be’emunaso yichyeh– “a Tzaddik lives with his emunah-—faith.” This teaches us that our core focus should be on Emunah.

The Gemara says that the only thing left for us to do at the end of days is to place our reliance on Hashem. Emunah is the key to all other mitzvos. Therefore, the first commandment is the positive mitzvah of emunah, which encompasses all the 248 positive mitzvos and the second commandment, “Do not have foreign gods,” contains all the 365 negative commandments.

With this information, we now have the focus we need to power up our entire body! The most important “vitamin” or “medicine” for us is Emunah. Working on our Emunah—truly feeling Hashem’s presence in all that we see and all that we do—is our pathway to fulfilling all of the mitzvos.

Rabbi Baruch Bodenheim is the Rosh Yeshiva of Passaic Torah Institute (PTI)/Yeshiva Ner Boruch. Rabbi Bodenheim can be reached at [email protected]. For more info about PTI and its Torah classes, visit www.pti.shulcloud.com