Bikkur Cholim: Being Present with the Sick

Rav Aḥa bar Ḥanina said: Anyone who visits an ill person takes from him one-sixtieth of his suffering. The Sages said to him: If so, let sixty people enter to visit him, and stand him up, and restore him to health. Rav Aḥa bar Ḥanina said to them: It is like the tenths of the school of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, who said that each of one’s daughters inherits one-tenth of his possessions. His intent was that each daughter would receive one-tenth of the remainder after the previous daughter took her portion. Here too, each visitor takes from the ill person one-sixtieth of the suffering that remains, and consequently a degree of suffering will always remain with the ill person. Furthermore, visiting is effective in easing the suffering of the ill person only when the visitor is one born under the same constellation as the ill person.

It is a mitzvah incumbent on everyone to visit the sick. Even a person of great spiritual stature should visit one of lesser stature. One may visit many times during the day. Whoever increases the frequency of his visits is praiseworthy provided he does not become burdensome. Whoever visits a sick person removes a portion of his sickness and relieves him. Whoever does not visit the sick is consider as if he shed blood.