Hello Rabbi,

It has become my understanding that all things physical are manifestations of things spiritual, and that ailments that plague us are symptoms of spiritual flaws that need correcting… I have a few minor health issues and I was wondering what lesson I might be able to take from them and how I can heed the call and address the spiritual issue causing it… of course I want to be healed physically too. One of the few issues that I have had lately is the following:

Over a year ago, I noticed that I was losing a lot of the hair on my head… a young, healthy girl should not be losing her hair, so I went from doctor to doctor to figure out the possible causes. Every doctor (seven of them) had another opinion and another “possible” diagnosis and treatment, and most of them did not agree with the other. Finally, after many blood tests, one of them saw that the ferritin levels in my blood were extremely and problematically below normal. (I think ferritin is a protein that stores iron.) So I was called “iron deficient” and “anemic” and was given iron pills to take every day (even this, none of the doctors agreed on).

I think that without the extra iron stores, the body cannot produce enough of a component of the red blood cells called hemoglobin, which carries oxygen through the blood for it to be transported throughout the body. My understanding is that because I was ferritin deficient, I didn’t have enough stores of iron to build the component of my red blood cells that carries the oxygen, so my body had to conserve the little oxygen that it could carry, and therefore it stopped transporting it to “nonessential” parts of my body (like my hair) in order to make sure that there is enough oxygen to get to my essential organs… (interesting chain reaction from one little thing, and interesting “safety” mechanism, thank G-d)….

One doctor “thinks” that this is the reason for my hair loss, and that once my ferritin level is restored to normal (which, I’ve been told, could take a few years), my hair will stop coming out and will be restored partially or fully. It’s kind of scary to be a young girl losing her hair for a reason that no doctor can agree upon, and when doctors say “probably” or “maybe” my hair will be restored, with no guarantees, I feel like panicking.

I am trying to drill into my head, from my frustrating experiences over the last year, that my healing will not be in the form of a good doctor or a pill. I respect the knowledge that doctors have, but I am coming to see that doctors don’t have the all-knowing healing power that I used to think they had – and I am trying to use this as a chance to put G-d as the ultimate healer in my mind. With that being said, I am still taking the iron pills but I don’t think they will help if I am not meant to be healed, and I don’t know if I will be healed physically if I am not healing what has to be fixed spiritually (am I thinking about this in the right way?).

I am not sure how to interpret this particular ailment from a spiritual perspective, and I was hoping you might be able to provide guidance for me on what kind of spiritual area I should direct my focus on, based on these symptoms, and what kind of message this might be for what I need to improve spiritually. I’m pretty sure that these particular symptoms and issues are pretty symbolic in Judaism, but I am at a loss for how to interpret it all and what I should direct my focus and energies to.

Thank you so much for reading this and for your time and guidance. Shabbat shalom!