The answer seems obvious, of course it is. After all, medical research helps finds cures for diseases and saves lives.
However, according to R' Dessler medical research is actually a bad thing for humanity for the following reason.
R' Dessler holds that there is no cause and effect in this world, everything is from Hashem. Man cannot do anything in this world, what looks like cause and effect is actually a test for man. Man is supposed to see through cause and effect and recognise that Hashem is actually the only cause and effect. Hishtadlus/man's effort, is only a tax. It has no effect, it is simply there so that the charade is kept up. According to R' Dessler, a person should do the minimum hishtadlus that is required because it doesn't help anyway. Anything more then the minimum is simply a waste of time and effort and if the person thinks that it helps is actually kefira. Therefore, medical research not only doesn't help, no one is cured by medicine, they are cured by Hashem, but it makes things worse. Medicine is just another test from Hashem and since medicine makes it look like there is cause and effect, it takes away from peoples emuna and causes more kefira in the world. Additionally, now that medicine has become common and accepted, everyone must do it to fulfill their minimum hishtadlus. In other words, nowadays, we have to waste time and money on medicine that doesn't work anyway because it has become accepted and therefore falls under hishtadlus. In other words, every time we come up with a new medical procedure, we are in essence increasing our hishtadlus tax.
If we think hard about R' Dessler's opinion it is essentially absurd.
Life expectancy until about 1850 was between 35-40 in Europe. Since 1850, life expectancy has gone up to about 80 (see https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy/). The explanation would seem to be quite simple. Modernization and industrialisation (especially the advances in medicine) improved the health of the population dramatically and caused the dramatic rise in life expectancy.
However, according to R' Dessler how can we explain this dramatic increase in life expectancy? If modern medicine has no effect and it's just a charade/tax and everything is only from Hashem why the change? When you couple this with the idea of yeridos hadoros, that every generation declines spiritually and is on a lower level then the previous generation, the question gets even stronger. Why should our generation which is on a lower spiritual level then the generations a few hundred years ago live so much longer?
Additionally, according to R' Dessler, there really is no such thing as an expert in anything other then Torah. The reason is very simple, mans actions have no effect on the real world. The only thing that affects the world is Hashem. The expert surgeon saves no one with his skill, rather Hashem does, its all just a facade, Hashem is saving the person. So in essence, the experts success proves nothing since there is no cause and effect.
In fact, even the Charedi world doesn't seem to hold like R' Dessler all the time. The Jewish Worker pointed out when R' Elyashiv needed heart surgery, they flew in the top cardiac/blood vessel surgeon from Cleveland (a religious Catholic) to do the surgery. According to R' Dessler bringing the top surgeon from America should be considered too much השתדלות and a lack of בטחון. After all, Hashem is doing the healing not the surgeon and once we have done our השתדלות, going to the doctor and having the surgery, why should it matter whether the surgeon is the best in the world or simply Joe surgeon who is competent? As long as we do our השתדלות to avoid requiring a נס, the rest is a גזירה מן השמים. If the גזירה is that the surgery will be successful, then it will be successful even if done by the average surgeon, and if the גזירה is that it won't be successful then it won't help that you have the best surgeon.
Another example is when government funding to the yeshivas was cut. Everyone in the Charedi world blamed Yair Lapid and the government for taking the money away from the Yeshivas. And yet, according to R' Dessler, that is kefira. Money like everything else comes from Hashem and if Hashem wanted the Yeshivas to get the money they would get it no matter what Yair Lapid wanted.
On the other hand when it suits them, the Charedi world adopts R' Dessler's opinion. For example, the Charedi take on Iron Dome during the war with Gaza was it's not "Iron Dome [saving us] it's Hashem". This went so far that a columnist on the Charedi site Kikar Hashabbat wrote a column bemoaning the fact that all we hear about in the news is praise for Iron Dome and that no one gets up and says that we are being saved by Hashem in the merit of our Torah learning and mitzvos.
The hypocrisy is unbelievable, but it also shows how even on fundamental issues like how does the world run, Judaism has no real answer. When it really affects them (health issues, money issues) people instinctively understand that the world works on cause and effect and therefore act that way. On the other hand, to justify their hashkafa of no army and torah only, they use R' Dessler's hashkafa.
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