Bikkur Cholim - Visiting the Ill

(1) And the LORD appeared unto him by the terebinths of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;

(1) וירא אליו. [Hashem] appeared to him. To visit the sick (Sotah 14a, Tanchuma Yashan 1). The amora R' Chama the son of Chanina said: It was the third day since his circumcision, and the Holy One, Blessed is He, came and inquired about [Abraham's] welfare.

It was taught: There is no measure for visiting the sick. What is meant by, "there is no measure for visiting the sick?" Rav Joseph thought to explain it: its reward is unlimited ... But Abaye explained it: Even a great person must visit a humble one. Rava said: [One must visit] even a hundred times a day. Rabbi Aha son of Hanina said: He who visits an invalid takes away a sixtieth of his pain. Said they to him: If so, let sixty people visit him and restore him to health? — He replied: The sixtieth is as the tenth spoken of in the school of Rabbi, and [providing further that] he [the visitor] is of his affinity .... Rav Helbo fell ill. Thereupon Rav Kahana went and proclaimed:

"Rav Helbo is sick. But none visited him." He rebuked them [the scholars], saying, "Did it not once happen that one of Rabbi Akiba's disciples fell sick, and the Sages did not visit him? So Rabbi Akiba himself entered [his house] to visit him, and because they swept and sprinkled the ground before him, he recovered. 'My master,' said he, 'you have revived me!' [Straightway] Rabbi Akiba went forth and lectured: He who does not visit the sick is like a shedder of blood."

Soncino Translation