Imagining Hannukah Light

Nedarim 40a:1-2

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 cleaned and made the beds, the student lived. He told him Rabbi, you revived me. Rabbi Akiva left and taught, "One that does not visit the sick is as if they spill blood".

Rav Dimi said about this: "One who visits the sick makes them live, and one who does not visit the sick causes them death". Why is that? Is it that one who visits the sick prays for mercy for them to live, and one who doesn't, prays for mercy for them to die? How could you imagine praying that they die?! Rather, one that does not visit the sick does not pray for them, to live or to die.

Nedarim 40a:9-10

Ravin said that Rav said: From where is it derived that the Holy, Blessed One sustains the sick person? It is as it is stated: “The Lord will support them upon the bed of suffering” (Psalms 41:4). and Ravin said that Rav said: From where is it derived that the Divine Presence is resting above the bed of the sick person? It is stated: “The Lord will support themm upon the bed of suffering,” this is also taught in a baraita: One who enters to visit a sick person may neither sit on the bed nor sit on a bench or on a chair. Rather, they should wrap in their garment and sit on the ground, because the Divine Presence is resting above the bed of the sick person, as it is stated: “The Lord will support them upon the bed of suffering.”

Tur, Yoreh Deah 335:1

When a person becomes sick, it is a mitzvah upon every person to visit them. For we see that the Blessed, holy One also visits the sick, as it says - "God visited him by the oaks of Mamre" which was in order to visit the sick...

It is an important mitzvah to visit the sick for this will lead to praying on behalf of the person which will help them recover. Also, when you actually see the person you will inquire and see if they need anything, and make the effort to secure what is needed and make sure the room is cleaned and the bed made.

Likutei Halakhot, Orach Chaim, Laws of Morning Conduct 4:14

This also relates to the mitzvah of visiting the sick. We are required to visit the sick person and show them an accepting countenance (Panim). In practice, this means that people should call on the sick person, help supervise their affairs, and see to all their needs, as stated in the Shulchan Arukh. This is relates to “illumination of the panim.” People do not hide their faces from the sick person or seclude themselves in their homes, but instead visit that person, tend to their needs, and chat with them. All this is termed an “illumination of the panim.” In this way, they invest the sick person with new life, drawing from the dimension of the illumination of the Supernal Panim. For the vitality that gives life to the sick comes mainly from there, as in the verse, “In the Light of the Panim of the King there is life.”

(5) This can be explained by way of analogy. When a person is healthy, the king will certainly not go to them in order to show them his panim. Rather, whoever wants to greet the king and bask in the radiance of his panim must first cleanse and purify themself very well, and put on appropriate attire. Then they have to position themself at the king’s gates and beg the king’s personal guards to obtain permission to enter. They will have to employ all the relevant strategies, until they are finally allowed to appear before the king, in accordance with their status—whether this means being granted entry to the royal courtyard, or to the palace, or to the inner chamber—so that the king should shine upon them the light of his radiant panim.

(6) But it is a different story when one of the king’s entourage falls ill and is confined to their sickbed, may HaShem save us. Then, when the king’s compassion is aroused to revive that person with the light of his panim, the king is compelled to go visit that person in their home in order to shine into them the light of his panim and revive their spirits. This is expressed in the idea that “the Shekhinah is present above the head of one who is ill.”

(7) This relates to Chanukah and Purim in the sense that they are holy festivals that were given to us in order to revive us until this very day—in this time of bitter exile when, as the holy Zohar writes, the Jewish people are called “sick,” as alluded to in “Sustain me [in exile] with dainty cakes, drape me in [the fragrance of] apples, for I am sick with love.”

(8) And owing to the immense severity of our spiritual illness, we are unable to make the pilgrimage, to appear and prostrate ourselves in worship before HaShem on our Shalosh Regalim. We are unable to enter the sacred temple, to receive the Ohr HaPanim, as we say in the Mussaf prayer for the

festivals, “Because of our sins we have been exiled from our land and distanced… We are unable [to ascend to appear and to prostrate ourselves before You].”

(9) And so, with tremendous compassion, the Master of Compassion took pity on us. For our benefit She added these two holy days of Chanukah and Purim— instituted for us by the great tzaddikim, the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah—in order to draw the Ohr HaPanim upon us and into our homes, even in the depth of our exile. She did this so that on Chanukah each person, in their home, can merit kindling the Chanukah light. This light corresponds to the Ohr HaPanim, as expressed in the verse - “God brightens the panim with oil,” which alludes to a perception of Godliness.

(10) The same is true regarding Purim. Each person merits drawing upon themself an aspect of the receiving of the Torah, which one does anew every year on Purim, even in the depths of exile. This renewed acceptance of the Torah is alluded to in “[The Jews] confirmed and accepted.”