“Whoever visits the sick, removes 1/60 of their suffering.”
(Talmud, Bava Metzia 30b)
Visiting the sick is a vital part of the healing process. The Torah asks all of us to be healers—because we all have the obligations to carry out the mitzvah of visiting the sick. The sages taught that visiting the sick gives them radiant aliveness, vitality, renewed life. (Nedarim40a)
The mitzvah (one of the enjoinments God gave us in the Bible) of visiting the sick involves more than simply seeing that the patient’s basic physical needs are taken care of. Equally important are the other two essential components of the mitzvah: lifting the sick person’s spirits, and praying for her recovery.
Praying for the patient is an integral part of visiting the sick, because although healing is ultimately in God’s hands, it is up to us to forge a vessel and channel for God’s blessings and draw them to the patient through our prayers on her behalf. And while we must rely on God for what is up to God, we are still obliged to do what is within our hands, which is to show the patient the face of human kindness and support in order to help her come to the simcha, the joy, that is the key to all healing.
“Underlying the mitzvah of visiting the sick is the idea of showing them a face of radiant kindness. Rather than staying buried in our own homes and hiding our faces from the patient, we must visit him, attend to his needs, and speak to his heart. By showing him a smiling face and radiating kindness, we draw down to him the light of God’s countenance—‘the light of the countenance of the Living God’ (Proverbs 16:15), the light of the Shekhinah, the feminine Divine Presence—and this is what gives him the new vitality he needs to be healed.” (Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, Likutey Halakhot, Hashkamat HaBoker 4:14) (1)
When Job had his terrible tragedies and illnesses, he needed solace. He said to his three friends who had come to comfort him, “If only you would keep completely quiet—that would be your wisdom. Please hear my argument and listen to what my lips are struggling to express” (Job 13:4-6). He needed his friends to deeply listen and receive. He was pleading to be understood. This was what could have brought him some relief from his inner torment.
Job’s lesson is that reaching out to the person who has the illness is in fact the very essence of healing. You must touch that inner person through basic human understanding. The qualities that count here are sensitivity, empathy, and the ability to reach out and make a human connection. One who would heal must first hear the suffering person out, observe, examine and probe, scrutinizing every detail for signs, hints and clues about the true nature of the problem in all its breadth and depth.
Especially where spiritual, mental and emotional factors are involved, it is vital to attend not only to what is said, but also to what is left unsaid. What unspoken messages are contained in her choice of images and symbols, her tone of voice, her hesitations and silences, facial expressions, postures, gestures, movements? Without sensitivity and receptivity to all this and more, the would-be healer/visitor will miss the essence of the problem.
The following resource information is offered for guidance when preparing to visit someone who is ill.
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Guidelines for Visiting the Sick
(from The Encyclopedia of Judaism) (2)
(1) Your intention and focus, kavanah, while visiting the sick is to “Uphold and restore his/her soul.” (Hebrew Ethical Wills) (3)
(2) It is important for the sick person to know that s/he isn’t left to suffer alone in his/her hours of suffering and weakness. (Talmud, Berakhot 5b)
(3) The most important aspect of the visit is the Prayer for the Sick which the visitor has to recite for the sick person: “Those who visit the sick must pray for their recovery.” (Rema to Shulhan Arukh, YD 335:4)
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The Five Prayers to Be Said When One Visits the Sick or Afflicted
(from The Mishneh Torah) (4)
1. “Please God, heal her, please.” ... “Ana El Na Refana La.” Moses prayed this for his sister Miriam, who had leprosy.
2. Say the blessing for healing which is in the daily Amidah, the prayer which is the core part of each service morning, afternoon, and evening:
“Heal us God and we shall be healed.
Deliver us, save us, liberate us and we will be liberated.
For You are our praise.
Grant complete cure and healing to all our wounds.
For You, Powerful One, are the faithful and compassionate Healer.
Blessed are You, Healing One, who heals the sick.
Amen.”
3. Say the blessing for the sick called The Mi-sheh-berakh. This is also said at the end of the reading of the Torah in the service:
“May the One who blessed our mothers and fathers, God of Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel and Leah; and God of Moses and Aaron, Miriam and Solomon, send your blessing and healing to those of us who are ill, the one we pray for silently and the one I now mention by name _______, son or daughter of ______. Comfort them Holy One, and have compassion on them, and restore them to good health and strength. And send them a complete healing from heaven: A healing of the soul and a healing of the body. May healing come speedily to them, and let us say, Amen.”
4. Psalms are also read for the sick person in the following order: Psalm 90-108, 20, 38, 41, 86, and 118.
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Guidelines for Visiting the Sick
(from The Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah # 355, #335)
The 3 main components of the mitzvah of visiting the sick:
1. To check if there is anything the patient needs and to attend to it.
2. To lift the patient’s spirits. Choose conversational topics that will bring him/her joy and vitality. Avoid anything that might give rise to depression and negativity. Be careful not to burden the patient. Be as sensitive as possible to her/his feelings. Sometimes it may be hard for her/him to talk but s/he feels obliged to do so out of respect to the visitor.
3. To pray for the patient. Someone who visits a sick person but does not pray for him/her has not fulfilled the mitzvah of visiting the sick.
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True healing is the healing of the whole person. This is what prayer—the quest for connection with God—comes to heal. Put all your strength into saying blessings daily, reciting the daily prayers, saying psalms throughout the day, and also talk to God in your own words in a stream of consciousness. These prayers are a most powerful means of channeling divine influences to yourself and another.
“How precious is your kindness, O G-d.
The children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings."
(Psalms 36:7)
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NOTES
(1) As quoted in The Wings of the Sun: Traditional Jewish Healing in Theory and Practice, by Avraham Greenbaum, pp. 382-422).
(2) The Encyclopedia of Judaism, Continuum Publishing, 2000.
(3) Hebrew Ethical Wills, ed. I. Abrahams, 1926, p. 44.
(4) Many of these guidelines are listed in The Mishneh Torah by Maimonides, Avel 14:4. Avel is a part of his Mishneh Torah.