Opinion: a prayer for the ill

Posted

In good health

Issue of September 3, 2010/ 24 Elul 5770
By Rabbi Avi Billet

The gabbai has just called up two men. One will lift the Torah (hagbah) while the other will roll it, wrap it and close it up (glilah). Before they strut their stuff, however, there is a slight pause as the gabbai announces, "Mi sheberach. Please approach the bimah."

The slight pause becomes a longer pause. Sometimes five or even seven minutes go by before hagbah-man actually lifts the Torah. People are getting antsy. Some have already taken off their tefillin in disgust. Many are talking. And the gabbai is reading names, repeating names, messing-up names, correcting the mess-ups, and saying more names.

To be sure, this is very important stuff. We pray that the One who blessed our forefathers please bless all the ill among the Jewish people. "As the congregation is praying on behalf of the sick people, so should G-d please bless the people we are mentioning, as well as all of the sick in the people Israel. Amen."

Are Misters Antsy, Disgust, and Talking really praying for these people? They are praying they don't miss the train!

Some shuls have eliminated the delay by having the gabbai announce, "When I pause, please insert the names of the ill for whom you wish to pray." A five-to-ten second pause during which all assembled can think of their ill loved ones is not too unbearable, even for those who are blessed to have no one ill in their family.

On Shabbat, some shuls recite a collective, universal Mi Sheberach which encourages the entire congregation to participate, to avoid the monotony of the gabbai's recitation and the unbearable pause which accompanies the reading of dozens of names.

But for the shuls that still announce every name, how do they deal with Misters Antsy, Disgust and Talking?

First of all, those gentlemen need to relax and take the proverbial "chill pill."

Having said that, however, what of the concept of "tircha d'tzibura" (burden on the congregation, typically caused by a delay in the service)? Consider that in 139:17 the Mishneh Brurah suggests one who is called to the Torah for an aliyah say the blessings with the Torah open so as not to delay the congregation with rolling open the Torah when it is time to read! How much time does it take to roll open a Torah? One second! If that can be considered "tircha d'tzibura," certainly the exhaustive list, which includes many difficult to pronounce Yiddish names (Shprintze Mushke Baila bas Yeta Frima Zissel) goes unappreciated by many, especially those who do not contribute names to the list, because it isn't part of the davening and it stops the flow for much longer than one second.

Which leads us to ask, what constitutes a "choleh," an ill person who belongs on the list? I have been congested for two days as I write this. Am I a "choleh?" I remember a friend of mine coming to shul one day when his 1-year-old son had a cold. He included his son in the mi sheberach. Considering that children on average get sick at least three times a year (an important process to go through to help build up their immunities), does every fever constitute a true "illness"?

What about a person who is terminally ill? Or a person at a later stage of parkinsons or alzheimers ("lo aleinu")? At this stage of medical research, these people do not get better. There are better and worse days, but there is no cure. As there is a private prayer for the ill which can be recited during the Shmoneh esrei, is it proper to take up the congregation's time mentioning an ill person who will not be cured?

Before the good readers harangue my apparent "lack of faith," two stories - one Talmudic, the other contemporary:

The Talmud recounts the relationship and fallout of Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish. After Reish Lakish died, Rabbi Yochanan went into depression and lost his reason. The rabbis prayed for mercy, and Rabbi Yochanan died (see the very end of Bava Metia 84a).

I recall speaking with a well known educator whose father was suffering from Alzheimer's: the disease took away his soul. He could barely communicate, and his body had only physical needs. The person I know consulted with a great posek who told him it is OK to pray that the suffering end (ie, that his father should die).  (See, for example, Tzitz Eliezer Vol. 5, 28:6, who provides a formulized text for such a prayer.)  While I am not suggesting one go to such an extreme, I am confident he did not include his father's name in the regular mi sheberach because he believed, in consonance with modern medicine, that the only improvement his father could achieve was the equalizing end of suffering called death. He may have had his own mixed feelings when he thought of his father during prayer, but they were private.

Do not take my comments thus far to suggest the mi sheberach is meaningless and can only be used in certain circumstances. Of course a terminally ill patient and a person suffering from any affliction can use prayers and mi sheberachs. The question is, when does the mi sheberach have to come at the relative "expense" of the flow of the davening?

The anonymity of the ill person, namely just the Hebrew name and no last name, makes it much easier for the general populace to care less and less. If they know who the person is, and the relationship, they can appreciate the name better and may even be interested in hearing the person's name in the prayer.  Without that, most of the Hebrew names mean about the same amount to people as reading the list of donors to a museum or the names on a memorial for any battle or war to which most of us have no connection.

We are blessed to live in a time of increasing longevity. Many people in their forties and some even in their fifties still have living grandparents.  In addition, our families are much larger and our social networks are much larger than they were thirty or forty years ago. We all know a lot of people, and, sadly, we know many people who are not in the best of health.

Aging is the way of the world. Health issues that come with aging are also the way of the world. It is certainly appropriate for a person to personally pray on behalf of anyone who is in need of help.

The question is - what criteria should go into putting a person's name in a public mi sheberach - as opposed to a generic-with-no-names public mi sheberach?

I think tircha d'tzibbura (unnecessarily delaying the flow of the davening) is a major factor to consider. Bearing in mind that Misters A, D and T are present, I posit that saying "ba'avur shekol hakahal mitpal'lim ba'avuram" - that our prayers on behalf of the ill should be listened to on account of the fact that the entire congregation is praying for them - is a lie every time the entire congregation is not reciting the mi sheberach in unison.

What is to be done? Perhaps people can truly reflect on why they insist on placing names into the mi sheberach. Some people get so hung up about it, they think the merit of mentioning a person's name in the mi sheberach on a regular basis will help cure the ill person. I tend to disagree, primarily because I think there is a better formula for praying on someone's behalf - namely adding the person's name, three times a day, to one's private shmoneh esrei in the supplication during the eighth blessing, R'fa'einu ("Heal us"). It takes up no one else's time, it is personal, it is meaningful, and it is six times more regular than the thrice weekly mi sheberach (18 times a week in total). It can cause us to really reflect and to really petition in a sincere way how and why we wish for the ill people in our lives to be healed.

Let us reserve the mi sheberach with mentioned names for the people in our community, for members of our individual shuls (whom we all know) who are known to be afflicted with illness, be it cancer, a coma, a serious car accident, recovering from a heart attack, etc. Perhaps we can even announce, "We are praying for Mr. X, Mr. Y and Mr. Z, and for Mrs. A, Mrs. B, and Ms. C who are in need of our prayers. Mi sheberach avotaynu..." Let us recite our own personal list of friends, relatives, relatives of friends, etc in every shmoneh esrei we say individually.

Those who need our personal prayers will benefit from them. Those who need communal prayers will benefit from them. No one will be a liar, no one will get upset, and everyone will have the opportunity to make the davening a more personal experience, an experience that is intuitively caring, one which allows all participants to feel pleased with the flow and pace and the sensitivity to avoid "tircha d'tzibura."