Healing
Exercise 1, the self: Focus on an area of your body that is experiencing pain or illness. Imagine that area being filled with God’s love, an energy that pushes away and heals that which is injured. Envision that loving energy enveloping the illness or pain, and gradually easing it away, back towards health. Then say, Praised are You, God, who heals Your people Israel, Barukh Atah Adonai, HaRophei amo Israel.
Exercise 2, another: Think of the person for whom you wish healing. Envision that you are reaching out, and offering comfort and healing. You are connecting with an energy in the Divine that can aid your loved one in strengthening and supporting their own power to heal. You are adding to their capacity, amplifying what is already there. You are also allowing yourself to hope. Barukh Atah Adonai, HaRophei amo Yisrael.
Background: Healing has a spiritual component. Getting better includes the physician’s art, but goes beyond. Our bodies have their own inner resilience which is strengthened by our strength of spirit. Cancer patients aid their healing by imagining their body fighting off the metastatic cells. People who know someone prays on their behalf for healing recover more than someone else. This prayer invites us to enhance the spiritual strength that can accompany medical care.
Yet like any human process, there is no certainty. Prayer can strengthen our ability to heal but certain illnesses and injuries may overcome that capacity as well. It’s not that God says no, I won’t heal you or your loved one. Rather, the body IS strengthened, but may still be unable to overcome.
Healing also isn’t something that ends when the crisis abates. Many illnesses, most notably cancer, can recur. There are scans and doctor visits and survival statistics even after a person is pronounced “well.” Praying for healing is an invitation to the self to allow for healing, to find strength to hold that uncertainty and discomfort with one’s own body. We say this every day three times a day because the journey and process of healing is ongoing.
Finally, our prayer, like so many of the prayers of the Amidah, focuses on the Jewish people. We praise God who heals God’s people Israel, quoting from Jeremiah. At the same time, I often think of non-Jewish family and friends when I say this prayer, and often envision a divine energy that can bring healing far beyond the Jewish people.
The prayer states a truth. God heals the people of Israel. It omits a deeper truth that requires a move beyond our own interests and community to start envisioning and recognizing a deep healing power that fills all that is. We start with the partial truth to help elevate our intention over time until we are ready for the deeper truth.
Heal us, God, and we shall be healed.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Booth
