This excerpt is taken from Yedid Nefesh…

The soul is sick for God’s love. Please God cure her by showing

Her your tender radiance. She will recover and be

Strengthened and with this healing of her soul, she

will be restored to be able to serve the

world.

…Hadur Naeh Ziv Haolam nafshi cholat ahavatecha

Al na kel na rifah nah la, noam zivach

Az titchazek vititrapeh vihaita la shifchat olam.

As a little girl, I vividly recall accompanying my father, a rabbi, for hospital visits to patients on Shabbat afternoons. We would begin by trekking up to the seventh floor, scrolling through a lengthy mint-green list for the names and room numbers of the Jewish patients. Of course, we would greet their neighbors as well. I can still feel the dark and intense trepidation and pain permeating those rooms, yet I also remember the miraculous way a smile or glimmer of positive energy was restored to the patients’ faces after some time spent with them.

The Gemara (Sotah 14a) informs us that the mitzvah of bikur cholim, visiting the sick, enables us to “follow” in Hashem’s “ways.” Rabbi Chama, the son of Rabbi Chanina, extrapolated that this responsibility involves emulating Hashem’s qualities and actions. Ultimately, Hashem tends to those who are ill, consoles mourners, and buries the dead. While in modern Hebrew bikur signifies a visit, the more traditional translation is from bakar, to “examine” or “check.” The visitor checks on the patients, assesses, and attunes herself to the patients’ respective needs.

In his compelling book “Judaism on Illness and Suffering,” Rabbi Reuven Bulka offers his readers an alternative interpretation of bikur cholim. While we generally conceive of it as visiting the infirm, Bulka suggests that the shoresh of livaker is related to boker, morning. When an individual is ailing, his worldview and mindset can become blackened and negative. A bikur, a visit, has the potential to lift this heavy darkness and replace it with sunshine and brightness. Most importantly it can offer tikva, hope. As we enter a room, we offer a new morning and create the possibility of a transformative connection to a unique story, soul and heart.

Each time I cross the threshold of a patient’s room, I cannot help but wonder what thoughts reverberate through their mind as, alone, they stare at four sterile white walls. Minutes feel like hours, hours feel like days, one day seems indistinguishable from the next, punctuated with the nightly and morning blood draws and meals being rolled in and out. There are surges of fear and possibly guilt for not having engaged in better self-care, a lack of control over what has befallen them, or anxiety over what is transpiring with their children, parents and spouse. How are they coping without me? Or, alternatively, are they coping “too well” without me? One such patient, Mimi, who was repeatedly hospitalized, was her husband’s full-time caretaker and worried how he was faring without her managing his unique needs. We must also consider the patients’ possible feverish disorientation, irritability and fragility accompanying their restlessness and pain, and the need to process a difficult diagnosis.

Despite these daunting prospects, we can connect and banish darkness in unique and creative ways. I am constantly amazed at how an otherwise debilitated patient and/or homebound elderly individual can summon immense inner strength and will to impart wisdom and bestow blessings. Patients and seniors have blessed me, coached me on how to heal my hoarse throat, suggested dates for me, offered marital and parenting advice, and enchanted me with their “how we met” and war stories.

One of the many experiences etched into my memory is that of singing and davening with a terminally ill patient, also named Shira. I sensed that she might respond well to music. She seemed to have a spiritual aura but lacked the energy to converse. Her nurse noted that as we sang, her oxygen concentration increased, and she began breathing more easily. Shira eventually passed away, but our bond, formed through the shared passion for Jewish music befitting our names, left an indelible imprint upon me.

I witnessed a mother who had to cope with the most unbearable loss of her son after he was struck by a bicycle on his college campus. Instead of this unthinkable agony causing her to lose faith in God, it miraculously sharpened her belief in God, and she became more religious.

Occasionally, visits offer the opportunity to celebrate milestones with the patients, such as the 102nd birthday of a sweet and soulful man who glowed with excitement at his birthday celebration. Last year, my dear friend Tom Weiss, z” l and I had the opportunity to visit a supremely special couple who had connected and married later in life. Despite their struggle with not having their own children, they enjoyed a profound love for one another. Leah would stroke her husband’s hair, sing to him, speak the most endearing words, recite Tehillim, and gently massage his limbs to improve his circulation. Every Shabbat or chag, Leah mustered up her spiritual and emotional strength to impart some words of inspirational Torah to us. We would offer words of support, bring homemade challah and sing. Though I was reluctant to sing too loudly in the intensive care unit, we received feedback that some non-Jewish patients in adjoining rooms were enjoying the melodies, especially those we sang on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

I am often struck and inspired by the inimitable devotion I observe between a wife toward her spouse, a parent toward a child, a child toward a parent, grandchildren toward their grandparents, and students toward their rebbes, as they sit at their loved one’s bedside for consecutive hours. They daven, recite Tehillim and attempt to anticipate the patient’s every physical and emotional need. This dedication can be observed week after week, month after month and from a chair that is often not very comfortable, a bathroom and food that are a far cry from what the visitor is accustomed to at home. I am in sheer awe of the countless righteous Satmar women who, amidst the hustle and bustle of tending to their own children and grandchildren, spend hours preparing home-cooked meals and pastries for the patients and their families. Charles Milo, whom we warmly depict as the “Godfather of Bikur Cholim” on the Upper West Side, prepares patient lists, coordinates visits and minyanim for patients and their families every Shabbat and on the chagim as well.

These virtuous individuals elevate Jews in the eyes of the hospital personnel who marvel at the commitment of Jewish individuals to the well-being of not only their family members and other Jews but to strangers as well. Just this past Shabbat, one of the affable hospital security guards, to whom I often sneak a treat, grinned warmly at me and greeted me with “Hi Kosher Lady.”

The power of bikur cholim not only diminishes the suffering of the recipient but works to bolster the visitor’s emunah as well as spiritual and physical ahavat chayim (love of life). Rabbi Bulka explains that we have not truly fulfilled the mitzvah of bikur cholim if we do not pray for the patient immediately following our visit.

I have a keen memory of my father reciting the mi shebeirach (a personalized blessing for healing) prayer, reassuring and consoling patients, and reciting the shema with them as well in terminal cases. Even upon leaving a patient’s room, we can transport our patients with us as we recite a mi shebeirach prayer, daven for them, recite Tehillim and bake challah in the merit of their refuah. The opportunity to pray with the patient empowers the visitor to actively partner in entreating Hashem for healing and allows the patient to feel cared for during and beyond the duration of the visit.

As we visit, we hope to offer a ray of light or at least a temporary respite from what is often a dehumanizing experience. As we leave the patient’s room, our daily concerns quickly dissipate. We have gained wisdom and we, too, are reawakened to a new boker, morning, with a fresh outlook. It seems to us that the heartfelt prayer above, derived from Yedid Nefesh, may come to fruition. Often a patient has remarked that she has appreciated a visit to such an extent that she hopes to volunteer herself once she has regained her strength, Ken Yihi Ratson.