Healing of Body; Healing of Spirit

Nancy Flam

From Sh'ma: a journal of Jewish Responsibility October 3, 1997
Reprinted with Permission

Serious illness affronts the whole person: body, mind and spirit. Early on, Jewish liturgy acknowledged that the ill person seeks healing on different levels. In our central prayer for healing, the mi shebeirakh, we pray for a complete healing: refuah shleima. The prayer then specifies what is meant by a complete healing: refuat haguf, the healing of the body, or what we sometimes refer to as ``cure,'' and refuat hanefesh, the healing of the spirit, the soul, the self. Modern western medicine mainly addresses our need for physical healing. However, at the same time as we seek physical health, we also seek spiritual healing in response to the assaults not to our body, but to our person: emotional upheaval, social dislocation, and spiritual discomfort.

I am a rabbi, not a physician. When I talk about ``Jewish healing,'' I refer to the spiritual, not physical dimension of healing. I speak of how the Jewish tradition and community achieves (or helps another person achieve) a sense of spiritual well-being, wholeness, perspective, fulfillment or comfort, especially around issues of illness, suffering and loss.

The key traditional Jewish resources for spiritual healing are the three pillars of Judaism itself: Torah (the study of Jewish texts), avodah (prayer) and gemilut hassadim (acts of loving kindness). As Jews, these practices are always at the core of our spiritual life. However, when we are confronted with serious illness, we refract these practices through a particular lens, and in so doing discover the Jewish genius of refuat hanefesh. In reverse order, I explore these resources below.

• Gemilut Hassadim
• Avodah
• Torah
• Conclusion
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