Bikkur Holim

 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.

That Which is Difficult is Easy

 That which is difficult is easy, the easy is difficult. Why is this so?

We get through most of life's challenges by making snap decisions, knee-jerk reactions or having honed responses so finely that we do not linger over them. 

But present most people with an easy question like, "What is life for?" "What is your purpose in living?" And they begin to stutter and mumble.

"Oh," you say, "those are not simple questions!"  

I counter, "If every day we make decisions that are hinged upon our response to those questions we should know the answer.  Well, you go to work, open savings accounts, put money away for vacations, tell your kids they need more education, do all these things and so many more and you would never think to ask what is our purpose? The answer to that question should inform the rest of our lives.  The reason why we do everything in life should be our response to the question, "What is our life's purpose?"

 Nu?

The first man and woman in the garden had a single task: to maintain what had been created in Eden.  As we know that simple charge ended in failure. 

Noah was assigned seven commandments for his heirs.  As the Torah and history reveals, this experiment also failed. 

So what is the ultimate lesson that curtails humanity's appetite for wrongdoing?  How does Torah configure the destiny of humanity?  It answers, make him responsible for more than himself.  While this may seem counterintuitive, read on.

In the Talmud, we learn of one of the students a rabbi who became ill.  As the student was new to the Academy and not very well learned or known no one went to visit him.  When the master, Rabbi Akiva, heard that his student was sick he ran to his home to pay him a visit.  The brief tale ends with the student rising out of his sickbed and thanking his teacher profusely for restoring him back to life. The lesson? Everyone is obligated to visit the sick.  This is not a good deed. It is a mitzvah, a commandment.

"Those who do not visit the sick are guilty of spilling blood," declare our sages.

There is another story of a ship floundering in a fierce storm. One companion said to another, "This is the worst thing to ever happen!"  His companion replied, "No. Something far worse would be when someone asks you for bread and you have none to give." 

In these instances and one thousand more examples just like them, our responsibility in life, to God and to the world is not to hoard but a gift to be taken and shared. Giving gives life meaning.

Returning to the initial question posed at the beginning of this message, "that which is difficult is easy, the easy is difficult" is simple to understand. We fight against doing what we feel is imposed upon us (mitzvah).  That makes it difficult. But once we self obligate to do God's will we find it is very easy and our actions breathe meaning into life.  And on the other side of the equation, when we do that which is most expedient it provides no sense of real achievement.  In the final analysis, it leaves us empty.

So, what is the meaning of life? What is your answer?

On Summer

        Grappling with the answer to ‘knowing why we are alive’ occupies so much of our time and energy.  There are times when we fully grasp the answer and we are exultant.  Other times we float in the void of not-knowing and are in despair.  During those moments of full self-disclosure life is utterly meaningful.  The largest question of life is how to live within that mind set...

Midrash: One of the young acolytes of Rabbi Akiva became ill.  Tilting toward death, the Master heard of his disciple’s danger. [Mind: this was one of thousands of aspiring students.]  Rabbi Akiva went to visit the ailing man.  Seeing that the room was drab and dark he opened the shutters, swept the room clear and brought him some hot broth.

Immediately, the young man began to sit up and recover his waning strength,

Rabbi Akiva then entered the Academy and pronounced, “Whoever does not visit the sick, it is as if they have snatched their life away.” 

            No act is ever committed in a vacuum.  There are ripple effects to every action we will have ever taken/ will ever take.  What is most disturbing is that we will never be aware of the full extent of our deeds.  All we have is the view in front of our eyes.  If we knew, for example, that our erratic driving caused someone to go home angry and start a fight with their family, we would seriously re-think our actions.  On the other hand, if we were aware of the full extent of the surprise phone call we made to a friend experiencing problems, we might call more often.  The fact is- we can not know these things.

            Riddle: what do you call someone sitting shiva alone? Answer: unrequited pain.  A death that had no response.

            One thing that we all share in common is loss.  No one gets through this world without the awful pain of death.  The typical Jewish response to death is shiva, bringing over meals for the bereft, showing up at minyans for the survivors, coming the funeral, following up with letters and calls...  All these responses to death ameliorate the pain.  The same is true of hospital stays, divorces and so much more.  Every visitor takes away a fragment of the pain when they leave.  Their presence and words gives meaning to life. 

            As once-upon-a-time you needed help and cried out, so it is with others.  What if we were created just for this specific purpose?  What if our lives had meaning only because of an event yet to unfold where our comfort was needed?

            I wish for all family members (that's you) a summer of opportunities to do both good deeds and mitzvot.  May our light dispel the darkness and through that light come meaning.