It is a mitzvah to visit the sick. What that means in legalistic terms is that we must do this command from Above: God ordained it. The problem is frequency. The Torah does not reveal its hand when it gives the mitzvah. How often must we visit the sick? Every day? Every month? One a year? Do we go when called? Or do we seek out the ill?
Also, who are the sick? There are many varied kinds of illnesses. Is mental illness included? What about someone suffering from addiction…is this considered sick? What about a woman in childbirth or a person going through a divorce – do these count as illness? If so, we may want to include job loss and infirmity like old age and change of life. There are days – you know the kind – when the car gets flat, the water heater breaks, we get a pink slip….
Who could forget the myriad issues that children bring? Each day brings fresh problems to solve, some worse than others. Parents provide their own obstacles to the ever-expanding heap of things that could be called sick.
If all these life circumstances could be labeled as sick we are all frequent visitors to that realm. We may be sick for months or several times a day.
“It is taught: On visiting the sick there is no fixed amount.” ~ Nedarim 29b
Perhaps the reason why the Sages do not set the amount of time we need to address the ill is because the need is ongoing and universal. Make the call you have been putting off, send the letter that you have been thinking about, go spend time with someone who needs you.
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