EXOD235 While invoking God as the "Faithful Physician" and as the source of all blessings, the Jewish people have been taught to look for His aid to come through human as through natural agencies. Ben Sira counsels: "Cultivate the physician in accordance with the need of him. For him also God ordained. It is from God that the physician getteth wisdom. ... God hath created medicines out of the earth, And let not a discerning man reject them. ... My son, in sickness be not negligent; Pray unto God, for He can heal. (Turn) from iniquity, and purify thy hands; ... Give a meal–offering with a memorial, And offer a fat sacrifice to the utmost of thy means. And to the physician also give a place. ... For there is a time when successful help is in his power; For he also maketh supplication to God, To make his diagnosis successful, And the treatment that it may promote recovery." [38:1ff.] Ben Sira's attitude still reflects the old notion of sickness as a direct manifestation of God's retributive justice as expressed in [this verse]. Hence the emphasis on the need of proper atonement as a first step to healing, and the concluding statement: "He that sinneth before his Maker shall be delivered into the hands of the physician" (v. 15). Popular Jewish belief retains this notion to the present-day, as evidenced by the gifts of charity which are dispensed on behalf of the sick or by the sick themselves. However, since Job's searching critique of the popular conception of suffering, there always has been some reluctance to consider all sickness as the result of misbehavior or sin, although in many instances this may be the case. If, then, in sickness as in health, God's help is invoked, while utilizing all the aid of human skill, it is because of the conviction that to a considerable--though not exclusive--degree the right mental attitude contributes to physical well-being. The attitude of Judaism to medicine is strikingly expressed in the following story, recorded in the late Midrash Temurah, in connection with the words of Psalm 103:15:"Man's days are as grass." "R. Ishmael and R. Akiba were walking through the streets of Jerusalem, and a certain man accompanied them. They were met by a sick person, who appealed to them: "My masters, advise me wherewith to be cured.' As they prescribed for him, their companion asked: 'And who smote him?' To which they replied: 'God.' 'Then, why do you interfere in something that is not your affair? He smote and you cure! Are you not transgressing His will?' In reply, the Rabbis asked him: 'What is your occupation?' 'A farmer,' he answered, 'as you see from the sickle in my hands.' 'And who created the soil?' they asked. 'God," was his reply. 'And you interfere in something that is not your affair?' they demanded. 'He created it and you cut its fruit!' 'If I did not go out to plow, hoe, fertilize, and weed the soil, it would not yield anything.' The Rabbis said: 'Most foolish man, from your work do you not understand the saying of the Scripture, "Man's days are as grass"? Even as the plant, if not weeded, fertilized and plowed, does not grow, and if it begins to grow and is not properly watered and cared for, cannot thrive and withers, so is the body of man. The fertilizer is the medicine and the husbandman is the physician.'" [Beth Hamidrash, I, pp. 107-108; see also Midr. Samuel IV, 1.] They in nowise conflict with God's providential care of man. Rab Aha teaches that on being cupped one should pray: "May it be Thy will, O Lord my God, that this action may serve me as healing, and mayest Thou heal me, for Thou art a faithful healer and Thy healing is certain for it is not the way of human beings to cure, but this is their custom." [Ber. 60a. See "The Physician's Prayer" in the Selected Poems of Judah Halevi, ed. Brody-Salomon, p. 113.]