We’ve all heard miracle stories of how tzaddikim could cure the deathly ill, but did they actually have medical prowess as well?

When Communist countries began opening their archives to Western researchers in the 1970s, an Israeli professor named Moshe Roseman made a fascinating discovery. In the Czartoryski Library in Krakow lay the tax records for the Ukrainian town of Mezibuzh from the years 1740 to 1760. Listed there were several references to a “Baal Shem” or a “kabbalist” living in a community-owned house and exempted from paying taxes.

In terms of modern Jewish history, the finding was significant. While chassidim are raised on the teachings and miracle stories of Rav Yisrael, the Baal Shem Tov, researchers of Eastern European history had long been puzzled by the lack of official records of this famed wonder-worker. The fact that the Baal Shem Tov was supported by the community means that he was a person of standing and not, as some narratives would suggest, a controversial upstart.

What also emerged from the documents is evidence that the Baal Shem Tov was known in his environs as a doctor or healer.

Chassidic tradition had long suggested that fact. Although we have no doubt that the Baal Shem Tov had holy and supernatural abilities, from the stories in Shivchei HaBaal Shem Tov it seems that he used natural methods, too, including grinding medicaments and creating healing potions.

So, too, the Baal Shem Tov’s use of medicine as a metaphor for the spiritual. Rav Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov — the Baal Shem’s grandson — writes in his Degel Machaneh Ephraim: “I heard from my master, my grandfather, a parable of a master doctor and a wondrously wise man….”

This is the famous mashal about how medications can be dangerous in and of themselves, and therefore only an expert doctor may prescribe their use. The nimshal is the tzaddik, who can give a person a spiritual cure that might be dangerous for someone else, but for this person it is effective.

That tradition about the Baal Shem Tov’s medical activities was affirmed by the discovery of a tax record in which the words “Baal Shem” appear alongside his record as a doctor.

Thus begins the Chassidic movement’s intriguing, multi-faceted encounter with medicine. From the Baal Shem Tov to his disciples and onward, as medicine evolved from folk-healing to a scientific discipline, chassidic leaders would interact in different ways with the profession.

Some were suspicious of doctors; many embraced professional knowledge; some celebrated chassidic masters even had medical backgrounds themselves. “Doktor” could mean anything from apothecary to M.D. But there was one constant: For chassidim, medicine was an earthly tool — but the real Healer lay on high.