halachic perspective on special prosthetics and steroid use

Halachic perspective on steroid use in professional sport.

Making radical intrusions into ones body to excel in physical prowess is not a new human enterprise, even in the Jewish tradition:

“And he prepared him chariots and horses and fifty men to run before him”[1], What is there remarkable in this? — Rab Judah said in Rab's name: They all had their spleen[2] and also the flesh of the soles of their feet[3] cut off.[4]

Danger and peril in professional occupation, are too no strangers to pious Jews[5]. Observant Jews must take care for the danger and action not to invoke feelings of personal might[6].

In the following, we will address the issues of Steroid use, and the use of special prosthetics. Section I will explore the two central aspects of steroid use (lawfulness and health).

the issue of special prosthetics in Halacha (such as the Oscar Pistorius case) will be sent seperately in a following answer.

Steroid use in professional sports

The use of anabolic steroids for enhancement of physical capabilities in professional sport is an important issue[7], with disturbing ramifications that span much farther than the sporting arena.

There are two levels of approach to this question, that will be dealt with in two sections: 1. The problem of professional misconduct, or more specifically the prohibited subterfuge (“Gneivat HaDa’at”) involved in said steroid use. 2. Self-inflicted harm as a result of excessive pharmacological intake, constituting a lack of regard to ones own health (“Venishmartem L’nafshoteichem”).

1. Gneivat Da’at:

Shmuel stated: It is prohibited to steal the mind of any individual[8]

This ruling is mostly interpreted as a criticism of false flattery or friendship[9], with the victim’s understanding[10] playing a central role. Natural conduct that is misconstrued does not fall under Shmuel’s ruling[11]. But in cases involving a connection between the informational deception and actual gaines, the ruling solidifies gneivat da’at as theft.

The Halachic implications of artificially gaining ground on competition in a rule-based setting, is explicitly prohibited, as expressed by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein:

Regarding your question about that which you heard that in (some) yeshivot, (the administration) permits the students to steal the answers to the questions on the state’s final examination (regents) in order to deceive (the state into) awarding a degree recognizing satisfactory completion of the material, this is prohibited not only ,because it is the law of the government but also because it is violation of Torah law. This is not only gneivat da’at that is prohibited according to Shmuel … it is also actual theft because when this person is seeking a job and his employer demands someone who satisfactorily completed his secular studies in high-school, he will show his employer his high-school diploma in order to procure the job and by doing so will violate the prohibition of .monetary theft [12]

The cognitive theft, in cases like cheating on exams, is coupled with concrete theft. The Igrot Moshe shows that a competitive situation defines such an ill-gained grade/status as actual stealing. This of course applies even more so to professional sports, in which the monitory value of performance is even more tightly connected to rule-breaking (making that extra yard, that final stroke).

And so, on the legal-contract level, As long as the rules of the game do not permit use of performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals, it is plain terms Halachically forbidden. Such use is an act of theft.

This banning of gneivat da’at notwithstanding, one mustn’t assume this resolves the riddle of Halacha’s relation to steroid use:

One should not refrain from the wider picture entailed here; enhanced performance can come in different shapes and forms[13], with loophole abounding[14]. Is a substance undetectable through standard screening still prohibited? If so, and the harsh restrictions include any and all substance use, what would be the border between a normal “blood sweat & tears” training regime and the illegal one? More generally, we are fast approaching the point where answers will be needed for the more fundamental question of enhancement versus health[15].

The question remains complex, since Halacha can and does prohibit this kind of theft, it is the rules of the game that determine what constitute an infringement on lawful gains. As we know, this is not as simple as saying “well, that’s just wrong” about a substance abuse, since the athletes are pushed way beyond the realm of normal human capabilities to begin with, even before the issue of enhanced ability presents itself. Determining the specific limitation on performance enhancement is no longer in the realm of common-sense.

2. V’nishmartem L’nafshoteichem

You shall be very careful of yourselves since you did not see any image on the day the ETERNAL spoke to you at Chorev from within the fire.[16]

The Nefesh (“yourselves”) constitutes the visceral part of human existence, both spirit and body. Taking care “not to harm it”, is the maxim of not harming ones body or psyche. The demand to keep a level of security and health sometimes exchanged for success, career.

One must keep safe, but it is also clear that is not the course of life, and for that reason wages of work are in fact the lifeblood of the worker, the responsibility of the employer:

And he setteth[17] his soul upon it[18]: why did this man [the labourer] ascend the ladder, suspend himself from the tree, and risk death itself; was it not that you should pay[19] him his wages?[20]

People put themselves at risk every day just to make ends-meat. Even though risk-taking is not commended halachically, there is a gradation to the level of acceptable risk in different professions. The Gemara[21] keeps some instances of (medical) self-endangerment as permissible, based on the verse Shomer peta’im Hashem[22] (God protects the simple). This leniency applies to risks that many people are willing to take

How can a Jewish individual enter into a place full of wild animals? Even though the Torah allows a poor individual to do this forhis livelihood – similar to those who travel thehigh seas to sell their wares – what they do is for their livelihood and they have no other option and the Torah states “and for these he puts his life” to which our rabbis comment “Why did he walk up a ramp or hang from a tree and put his life on the line? Was it not for his wages?”.

But regarding someone who enters into a place of wild animals and places himself in danger and his main intention is not for livelihood but rather because of desires of the heart, he violates the dictum “You shall be very careful of yourselves”.[23]

The Noda B’Yhuda situates livelihood as an acceptable risk through the same logic that guides Gemara in the verse. Some activities that involve active danger are to be taken as natural, a given risk to which people subject themselves as a matter of course.

Along the same line of Psak, R. Hershel Schachter in his Responsa[24] discerns three levels of risk in profession:

a) Activities that are clearly dangerous without other merits to them (“Russian roulette”); these activities are prohibited outright.

b) Some activities are not viewed as dangerous although there may be the possibility of danger in the course of action; these are permitted and do not involve the principle of Shomer peta’im Hashem.

c) There are activities which some view as dangerous and others do not; Shomer peta’im Hashem applies here. Say Steroid use becomes legal, and it is no longer a legal issue- would it still be Halachically problematic? Where do the health risks, the different types of harm that such drugs cause, fall in the different levels of risk-taking?

Where can one who would oppose steroid-use on grounds of unnecessary risk-taking, draw the line[25] of acceptable risk in professional pursuits ?

The current debate surrounding the issue of steroid use would point according to some toward the third level of risk in R. Schachter’s Responsa. That still does not account for the over-all risk in steroid use by adolescents[26] aspiring to a professional athletic career through steroids, or emulating professional athletes.

The clear and direct danger to an undeveloped body is far greater than to an adult[27]. Heart and liver damage, infection, changes in sexual characteristics, violent rages, and even severe depression that can lead to suicide. The growing percentage of adolescent steroid use in the united states, makes the risk type much closer to the first kind in R. Schachter’s gradation, and must be stopped.

To sum up the health and Halachot pertaining to self-preservation:

According to current data on the subject, the risk level may be considered as belonging to a Halachic "grey-area" (section c above), but it is quite possible that research and investigation into the matter (both for adult and adolescent steroid use) will tip the weight of the matter to the definite danger level described by R. Schachter (section a)

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[1] I Kings I, 5.

[2] Rashi The spleen causes a feeling of heaviness. It was removed by use of drugs. The tradition of spleen removal to facilitate swift running is recorded by Plinius; v. Preuss ; Biblischtalmudische Medizin, p. 249.

[3] Rashi: So that they might be fleet of foot and impervious to briars and thorns.

[4] Talmud Bavli, tractate Sanhedrin 21b. ( translation: “come and hear” , edited by Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein of Jews’ College, London)

[5] See Tractate Kiddushin 82a, where the majority of sailors are described as pious ("Rubam Chasidim") in the danger they live in ("there are no atheists in a foxhole" ), and favored by G-d.

[6] Dvarim 8:17: "My strength and the might of my hand made me this great wealth".

[7] For a review see Charles E. Yesalis ; Anabolic Steroids in Sport and Exercise ; Pub. Human Kinetics, 2000

[8] Talmud Bavli, Tractate Chullin 94a

[9] Rashi Chullin .94a, s.v Mishum . see Bamidbar 35:33 (“Do not indict the land in which you reside”) and the Midrash on this verse: Sifri Bamidbar no. 161 (“This is a warning for flatterers”)

[10] Chullin 94b. See next note on self-deception.

[11] Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat .228:6 :

“One should not give the impression that one is doing something for another, when he really isn’t. For example: He should not urge his friend to eat with him when he knows that the person won’t [accept his invitation]. He should not send gifts when he knows the person won’t take them. He should not open a fresh barrel of wine, the remainder of which has been sold to a merchant, unless he informs his friend that it wasn’t opened specifically for him. But if it is the kind of thing the friend should have realized, and he is fooling himself by thinking that it was done to honor him – for example, when a person meets his friend on the street, and the friend – thought he had come specially to greet him .[it is not necessary to inform him otherwise]”

[12] Igrot Moshe, Chosen Mishpat chap. 32

[13] Genetic enhancement is not a topic for sci-fi stories anymore. So is cybernetic enhancement of almost every human faculty. Medical technology used to improve the lives of severe paraplegics can be used to improve synapse reaction time and accuracy, strength etc. these topics belong to the next section concerning the Pistorius case.

[14] Breathing doctored gases to improve blood oxygenation, and confining oneself to a pressure-tank seems very artificial and “wrong”, but is it worse than traveling to mountainous regions in Africa for month to achieve similar results? it is all done in order to (literally) catch up with those who are native to such regions.

[15] See Caplan A, Elliott C (2004) ; Is it ethical to use enhancement technologies to make us better than well? ; PLoS Med 1(3): e52.

[16] Dvarim 4,15; Translation – The Torah (Feldheim, 1999).

[17] Lit., 'lifteth up.'

[18] Dvarim 24,15.

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