Rav Avigdor Miller on Improving the Perfect World
Q:
Have doctors, have physicians, has the medical profession not improved things?
A:
And the answer is, they haven’t improved anything. I’ll explain that to you. But don’t be in a hurry to run away though. Listen to what I’m saying.
Mankind was perfect from the beginning. According to the original ecology, the cooperation of all the forces of nature made life the happiest and the best. And nobody took aspirants. Nobody needed vitamins. And they lived close to a thousand years. That’s because nature was then performing as it was created to perform. Now you need every link in the chain of nature. You must have dinosaurs, and you must have mammoth elephants. You must have saber-toothed tigers. Each one of them is essential in the chain of the ecology.
When they attempted to get rid of wolves in Australia — they made a big campaign to get rid of wolves and jackals — then they discovered a worse plague. Rabbits began to increase over Australia in the millions. And they devoured the crops. And then they look back now and long for the good old days when the wolves and the jackals used to keep down the rabbit population.
When in Pennsylvania they made a campaign to get rid of the blacksnake, and they gave a bounty. Anybody that brought in a blacksnake to the local sheriff got a certain amount of money. Then they discovered that the field mice were so numerous now that they were destroying all the crops. So quickly they repealed that law and they said don’t touch the blacksnake.
Because every animal, every creature, and every plant is essential in the original ecology.
Today, if you go to certain places, you are overwhelmed by mosquitoes. But in ancient times, the mosquitoes were kept down by other, bigger insects and by birds that preyed on them. If that species of bird becomes extinct then the mosquito increases without any inhibitions. And that’s why Hakadosh Baruch Hu, when He made the world, it was perfect! But mankind and also other things — Hakadosh Baruch Hu brought misfortunes on the world — and little by little, species began to become extinct one after the other, and certain plants died out, and therefore the balance of ecology was upset. And now we have to use artificial things.
And therefore, certainly when the doctors came forward with remedies, it’s like somebody once had a beautiful house and the builder put in everything. He had air conditioners set into the walls under each window. But after a while the tenants were so careless that the air conditioners fell into disuse, and now all you had was just useless things in the walls. So along comes a mason and he takes out the air conditioners because after all they are rotted and now air is blowing in, cold air is blowing through the holes in the wintertime, and he has to patch up the holes. Now the patching that the mason does is not as good as the original building when you had functioning air conditioners occupying all those places. Now you walk by, you see there are cement blocks. It’s a great thing. Now you can live at least there. But it’s not as happy as it used to be.
The physicians are patching up what once was more perfect and didn’t need them. Once upon a time — we’re talking about the time before the Mabul and right after the Flood when the world was as near perfect as it could be; because Hashem cursed the earth because of the sins. But before, everything was so perfect that the germs were kept in check by the protozoans. The protozoans fed on the germs. And the insects fed on the protozoa. And the birds and the reptiles fed on the insects. And the bigger animals fed on the birds and the reptiles. And so on. And so everything was a perfect chain, and therefore, we didn’t have these ills and ailments that came into existence later. Certainly when people come forward and they’re able to stuff in cement blocks and fill in the hole, they deserve gratitude from us.
And certainly physicians have done a great job to help mankind in accordance with the present circumstances. Suppose somebody comes today and he invents a plan to filter water and make it pure. It’s a great thing. But when Columbus came to America, they didn’t need it. Because the water was as pure as could be. When Columbus set his foot on the soil of the islands, he found water that was sweet and pure. And nobody had to fluoridize it. But because mankind polluted it, now we needed somebody to clean it. And therefore because things became deteriorated, we need the physicians. No question that they’re doing great work.
(Nov 1977)
