Tefillah - 039 When We Get Sick

חולים - We mention in the second blessing of Shemoneh Esrei that Hashem is the Healer of the sick.

The Gemara says that a doctor is given special permission from Hashem to heal. When Avraham Avinu was sick, a special angel from Hashem was sent to heal him. That was a physical kind of sickness. But there is another kind of sickness one can have; let us reflect.

When Hashem heals a person, how does He heal him? A doctor heals a person using various medicines. But how does Hashem Himself heal us?

Chazal say that Hashem always provides the remedy before the illness. Chazal also say that the Shechinah is at the foot of the bed of an ill person. If a person feels this, he will be able to have the “remedy that comes before the illness”.

If a person doesn’t remind himself of the Shechinah when he is sick – if he forgets about his relationship with Hashem – then all the thinks about his discomfort, his loss of money since he’s not going to work, and other things that he’s missing out from by being sick.

When a person is sick, the Shechinah is near his bedside, as Chazal say. In other words, being sick is an opportunity to be closer to Hashem, and if a person would feel this, he would get healed by Hashem Himself.

Usually, when people get sick, they simply get busy with doctors. They place too much emphasis on the physical aspect of being sick, and they forget about this concept of Shechinah. People instead think of this statement of Chazal as intellectual knowledge, but they don’t actually feel this way when they are sick. If a person doesn’t feel that the Shechinah is with him when he is sick, the Shechinah indeed will not be with him.

A person needs to reveal his soul. Without revealing the soul, a person might keep all the mitzvos, but when it comes to having emunah in Hashem, he knows intellectually that he must have emunah in Hashem and he “gets chizuk”, but he doesn’t actually feel Hashem next to him.

But there is a kind of life a person can live in which the knowledge of Hashem is not just a knowledge, but he can feel it. When a person is sick, his body gets weakened, and it is an opportunity for a person to feel his soul more. It is easier to access our soul when our body gets weakened. Chazal say that the older a Torah scholar gets, the more serene he becomes; the meaning of this is that since his body weakens with age, he is more in touch with his soul, and his soul is more revealed. He becomes more serene.

Unfortunately, most people, when they get sick, do not use the opportunity. Instead, they feel their body’s hold on them even more…

When a person gets sick, and he feels weak, he often like his body has totally taken over, and he feels helpless, with such a weakened body. It is then an opportunity for him to reflect about what life is about. To think about what spirituality is. To think about how much more he needs to do in his spiritual mission on this world.

When a person is asleep, imagination takes over, and he has dreams. Dreams reveal to a person what’s going on inside his subconscious, but it’s not a clear image, because it’s still imagination. But when a person is sick, he can get to know what’s really going on inside himself, by reflecting about his life and ask himself if he is living a life of truth. His mind is clearer then, unlike a person in a dream, who is imagining things.

When a person is sick, his weakened body makes his mind clearer, and it is an opportunity for a person to get into his mind and what’s really going on in it: What he really wants out of life, what he needs to do with his life – and if he has been living life in the right way until now.

This is the meaning of how the Shechinah is revealed to a sick person. The more a person reflects when he’s sick, about the truth of life - the more revelation of the Shechinah he merits. Being sick reveals to a person what he’s really all about inside.

And the more Shechinah a person merits, the more he merits to get healed from Hashem – and the less effort he will have to make in going to doctors and getting healed.

Every person, even the greatest tzaddik, has a physical body, and therefore, to some degree, even the greatest tzaddik in the world is affected by his body. Rav Dessler calls this the concept of “body shadow” (tzeil haguf), that even the greatest tzaddikim, who are very in touch with their souls, are still somewhat hampered by the physical body. But when a person is sick, he now has the opportunity to leave his body’s hold on him and instead identify more with his soul.

A sick person is called a choleh, from the word chalal, empty space. This alludes to the chalal, the void that is in Creation – the concept that people are missing a connection with Hashem. Thus, being sick is a time and opportunity for a person to leave his void – his lack of connection with Hashem – and now increase his emunah in Hashem.

When a person gets sick, he should of course make effort to go the doctor. As Chazal say, permission is given to doctors to heal. But he should also make sure to increase him emunah at the same time. It is an opportunity to discover emunah.

No matter how young or old a person is, and no matter what his illness is, being sick is a time to access our emunah in Hashem. Being sick shows us that we have a chalal, a void in our soul, a lack of connection of Hashem. It is a message from Hashem for us to increase our relationship with Him and fill that void.

These days, they heal animals too. When we get healed by doctors, do we want to get healed just as they apply medicine to animals…? Being sick is not just a time to seek healing for our body. It is a time to work on our emunah, to realize that although Hashem gives permission to doctors to heal, we must simultaneously work on our emunah in Hashem, that He is the source of all healing.

We should think about this even before we get sick, and not wait until we get sick in order to work on this.

May we all merit to have the Shechinah, a complete healing – and may all the sick in the Jewish people merit it.