The Patient as Parable: Highlighting the Interpretive Framework: Applying Mystic Hermeneutics to Patient Narratives
Trends in Internal Medicine June 30, 2025 Julian Ungar-Sargon
WThis paper extends the concept of literary tzimtzum from Hasidic mystical pedagogy to medical hermeneutics, proposing that the patient-physician encounter can be understood through the lens of parabolic interpretation. Drawing on the Alter Rebbe's theory of meshalim as forms of divine contraction that make infinite meaning accessible to finite consciousness [1], this study argues that patients...