 So, I have a friend in New York and whenever I ask him any question, his answer to me is, it's complicated. And the truth is that when it comes to many things in life, it's complicated. And certainly when it comes to many issues in Judaism, it's complicated. There are rarely simple answers to complicated questions. When it comes to the topic of alternative medicine, one of the problems is it's simply not simple to define what we mean by alternative medicine. There's an incredibly wide range of healing practices that are today understood to be alternative. But what does that mean at all? We know that in Jewish thought, we believe that all healing ultimately comes through God. That's what we believe as Jews. So really, what difference does it make, whether healing comes from a health practitioner who is officially sanctioned and recognized by local authorities or by someone who's not officially licensed to practice some form of medicine, meaning that you could say alternative medicine is medicine practiced by people who are not licensed as doctors. But ultimately, not even the doctors that we go to are the source of our healing. So what difference does it make? However, most societies we know have formal bodies that certify whether a doctor is qualified. And our Code of Jewish Law, the Shulchanaruch, certainly discusses this concept and says that really we should only be treated by doctors who are officially sanctioned by the community. That's what our Code of Jewish Law seems to say, that really you should go to doctors that are officially sanctioned by the community and that people who administer treatment that are not officially recognized, those practitioners are subject to being sued and having to pay damages if their treatments don't work, which is not the case if you go to an established sanctioned doctor and their therapy doesn't work, obviously we're not dealing with a case of overt malpractice or incompetence, but the Code of Jewish Law seems to be assuming that if you go to a recognized doctor, there are no guarantees. And if their treatment was done according to standard practice and it doesn't work, you're not given a guarantee that their treatment should work and so you have no recourse in the courts. But presumably what the Talmud seems to be saying, the Code of Jewish Law, is that if you go to someone who's not a sanctioned doctor, not a licensed doctor, then if their treatment doesn't work or certainly if it causes some kind of harm or damage, then you certainly have the ability to take them to court and to sue them. Now within Jewish teaching, there has been a long standing view that in order to determine whether doctors and therapies can be approved, meaning how do we determine whether a doctor or a particular kind of therapy is one that we should approve and sanction. So there is a long standing view that the proof should be in the pudding, so to speak. And that if these therapies or these treatments are effective in healing if they work, then they're valid, whether or not they're traditional or non-traditional, meaning that it's quite possible that non-traditional therapies today are simply not fully understood and maybe in 100 years or 25 years or 10 years, they'll become standard. So there is a view within our tradition that what's important is not whether or not it's new, it's cutting age, it's old fashioned, it's been tried and true. The question is whether or not the therapy, the treatment is effective and if it is, then it is valid. Now from the Torah's perspective, there are practices that are clearly prohibited. These would include any therapy rooted in idolatry, witchcraft, sorcery, or any modality that ascribes power to heal to anything other than the Creator. So if we're dealing with a healing therapy, a healing modality that basically says that the healing is coming from the source or our other than God, that kind of practice would be prohibited biblically. The Talmud discusses other kinds of practices that are not outrightly idolatrous, but they seem superstitious or nonsensical. And these are referred to as mibnei, darkei, and mori, the ways of the Amorites. And there's dispute in the Talmud about these kinds of practices where the mayor seems to permit such practices and the sages seem to prohibit such practices. How is this dispute resolved? So the basic resolution in the Talmud is that if these practices are effective and they help people, then they're not prohibited. But if these are practices that are not really effective, then they are prohibited as Amorite practices. That becomes, again, the cutting edge of determination. Now in modern times, there is really no clear consensus among rabbinic scholars in evaluating many of the healing modalities that are popular today. These include everything from homeopathy to acupuncture and acupressure and kinesiology and energy healing such as Reiki. There are dozens and dozens of modern practices. And what we're going to see is that today's rabbis are far from uniform in terms of assessing these practices. Part of what's at issue among the sages today is how to understand the concepts of energy in general, specifically the concepts of aura and chi. Because it seems that many of today's practices, alternative healing practices, are rooted in eastern traditions that are based upon concepts of the aura and chi energy. So what we have are some sages today that see these concepts as based entirely upon idolatrous eastern systems. They say that these concepts are rooted in idolatrous pagan eastern religions and that this universal energy is viewed as problematic because according to this view, according to this restrictive view of these rabbis, they understand that in the east, this universal energy is seen as having a kind of will of its own, a consciousness of its own that is independent of God, that has the ability to benefit us or to harm us. And therefore, this approach sees these therapies that seek to control this energy as problematic because they are done through techniques derived from occult or idolatrous forms. On the other hand, there are other authorities who believe that this view of auras and energy is really based upon a misunderstanding. These authorities who are more permissive insist there is nothing at all idolatrous or insidious about these concepts and that they are simply natural forces similar to gravity or electricity. And these permissive scholars actually point out that these are ideas, ideas of aura and energy are mentioned by numerous respected medieval Jewish authorities. They actually have their roots not exclusively in eastern religions, but we found these, we find these ideas as well in Jewish sources. So we have today basically two views and it's interesting that in the past several years two important books have come out by respected rabbis. One is a very, very large book, several hundred pages, that goes through numerous what we would call alternative healing modalities today and essentially takes a very permissive view and overcomes all of the potential objections by other rabbis. And about a half a year after this large book came out, there was a book that came out posthumously from Rabbi Belsky who actually had met in New York and he takes a very, very negative view of almost all of these alternative healing practices. But I will conclude by saying that even according to those who permit the use of such techniques, they would say, for example, Reiki, they would say that if the practitioner is incorporating anything problematic, such as the invocation of angels in terms of their healing, then it would be prohibited anyway. So what we come out to essentially today is that there is no uniform view among Torah authorities today at least in terms of understanding whether these alternative medical procedures and practices are permissible. It could be that as we understand them more in the coming years, they'll become more of a uniform view, but this is the way we stand today.