ELI Talks: Gabrielle Kaplan-Meyer

...There is a story about one of Rabbi Avika's students who became sick. The sages did not come to visit him. Rabbi Akiva came in to visit him, and because he showed him respect and sat in front of him, the student lived. He told him Rabbi, you made me live. Rabbi Akiva left and taught, "He who does not visit the sick is as one who spills blood". Rav Dimi said about this: "He who visits the sick makes him live, and he who does not visit the sick causes him to die". Why is that? Is it that he who visits the sick prays for mercy for them to live, and he who doesn't prays for mercy for them to die? Don't think that. The reason is he who does not visit the sick does not pray for mercy for them, not to live and not to die.

(1) ...It is a religious obligation to visit the sick. Relatives and close friends may visit immediately and others after three days. But if he (the sick) is gravely ill, all may visit immediately.

(2) ...A person of high status should visit even a person of modest status, even several times a day, and [one should also visit] one's peer. Anyone who exceeds this standard is worthy of praise, but one should take care not to burden the patient. There are those who maintain that even an enemy should visit the sick individual (Maharal 197). This does not seem correct to me, rather one should not visit a patient or comfort a mourner who is one's enemy lest the [suffering person] think that [the enemy] is rejoicing in his misfortune, which will only cause more suffering. And this is what seems correct to me.

(3) ...The visitor should not sit on the bed, nor on a chair nor on a bench but rather wrap himself (in tallit?) and sit before him because the Divine Presence rests above his head. Isserles: Especially if the sick person is laying on the ground because the one sitting would be higher then him but if he is laying on a bed it is permitted to sit on a chair or bench....

(4) ...We do not visit a sick person during the first three hours of the day because the illness is less pronounced in the morning and one might be tempted not to pray for him; nor during the last three hours of the day because the illness is more severe then and one might despair of praying for mercy. (And anyone who visits the sick and doesn't pray for him has not fulfilled the mitzvah.) (Bet Yosef based on Ramban.)

(5) ...When one prays for mercy for the patient, if one is doing so in the patient's presence, one may pray in any language he desires, but if this is not in the patient's presence, one must only pray in the Holy Tongue [Hebrew].

(6) ...[When one prays for the sick person] one should include in the prayer a request on behalf of all of the ill among the Jewish people, saying, "May the One have mercy upon you among the people of Israel," and on Shabbat, one should say, "It is Shabbat and we don't cry out on Shabbat, but healing is near at hand."

(7) ...We tell the patient that he should attend to his affairs; if he owes or is owed money, but he should not take this inquiry as evidence that he is dying and become afraid.

(8) ...We don't visit patients with intestinal maladies, nor eye disorders, nor mental disorders, nor those who have difficulty speaking. We don't visit in these patients' presence, rather, we enter the vestibule of their house and ask after their welfare, inquiring whether they need anything in particular, and we listen to learn about the suffering of [the patient? the caregiver?], and we pray for the patient.

(9) ...We visit the sick non-Jews because for the "ways of peace" (mipnei darkei shalom)

(10) ...For an intestinal disease, a woman tends to a man but a man does not tend to a woman. Rama’s Note: there are those who say that whoever has a sick person in his house, goes to the sage that request from them mercy for the sick person. And similarly the custom to bless the sick in synagogue, to call them a new name, because changing the name tempers the severe decree. Comfort to the mourners comes before visiting the sick.