As I look at your faces, your beautiful faces on Zoom and in the room, I am aware of how much people are in need of healing. We talk about this a lot here at CKI and we have a robust tradition of praying for those that you name for healing of mind, body or spirit. We call that the misheberach prayer. Translated, that first word means the One who blesses.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about mishebreachs lately—for all of you—and for myself as people have added me to their own personal or congregational misheberach lists. Over the summer I actually finished writing a book called Trip Notes: Love for the Journey about exactly this topic. Begun when our dear friend Nori had pancreatic cancer and expanded when Simon was undergoing treatment for bladder cancer, it is 16 weeks of prayers for healing.
How do we think prayers like that work? There is science now behind why prayer and mediation help with a range of healing.
“More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson; from Morte d’Arthur)
“Different types of meditation have been shown to result in psychological and biological changes that are actually or potentially associated with improved health. Meditation has been found to produce a clinically significant reduction in resting as well as ambulatory blood pressure,[2,3] to reduce heart rate,[4] to result in cardiorespiratory synchronization,[5] to alter levels of melatonin and serotonin,[6] to suppress corticostriatal glutamatergic neurotransmission,[7] to boost the immune response,[8] to decrease the levels of reactive oxygen species as measured by ultraweak photon emission,[9] to reduce stress and promote positive mood states,[10] to reduce anxiety and pain and enhance self-esteem[11] and to have a favorable influence on overall and spiritual quality of life in late-stage disease.[12] Interestingly, spiritual meditation has been found to be superior to secular meditation and relaxation in terms of decrease in anxiety and improvement in positive mood, spiritual health, spiritual experiences and tolerance to pain.[”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/
So the science is becoming clearer. Prayer and meditation help in healing.
Besides growing scientific evidence that prayer works, really really works to provide or aid in physical healing, there seems to do something else. It helps a person know that people care about them, that they are part of a community. It is part of why we do a misheberach here both on Friday night and Saturday morning. You telling us who you are concerned about helps support all of you—and the people you are praying for, while building our own community. Do not underestimate the power of prayer.
However, like Jews we argue about lots of things. Including how to do a misheberach. And there are lots of questions. So let me attempt to answer some of them:
- Who is entitled to one? Anyone who is in need of healing of mind, body or spirit. You get to decide. Sometimes it is people with serious medical conditions. Sometimes it is people with chronic medical conditions. Sometimes it is people who are in the hospital or in rehab. Sometimes it is people who are struggling with a mental illness or a long-standing disability.
- Does the person have to be Jewish? No, we can pray for people who are not Jewish. And we can pray for someone who is Jewish who doesn’t have a Hebrew name.
- Does the person have to be in the hospital? No. If you feel you would like a mi shebeirach said for you or a loved one, then say one.
- Can it be for a group of people? Yes, we have often prayed for the people facing a natural disaster, for frontline workers, for our leaders and advisors as the prayer for our country says and “for the world at large”, which clearly needs healing.,
- In my congregation we also do a mi sheberach for healing for any one who is in need for healing of mind, body or spirit, as part of the Friday night service.
The Mi Shebeirach prayer is a prayer that brings me hope. I like the idea in the Friedman version that we pray to give us courage to make our lives a blessing. I pray that this prayer will give you hope as well. When I visit someone in the hospital I ask them what they want to pray for. Often I get answers like strength, courage, to not be in pain. Recently I got mercy. I pray for a skilled and compassionate care team.
The traditional words:
May the one who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, bless [name] son/daughter of [parents], since he/she has come up to the Torah in honor of God and Torah. May he/she merit from the Holy One of Blessing protection, rescue from any trouble or distress, and from any illness, minor or serious; may God send blessing and success in his/her every endeavor, together with all Israel, and let us say, Amen.
Note that we pray through the zecut, the merits of our ancestors, both the patriarch and the materiachs. Some people believe that when praying for healing with someone’s Hebrew name, it is the mother’s Hebrew name that is necessary.
Here are Debbie Friedman’s words:
Mi Shebeirach
Mi shebeirach avoteinu
M’kor hab’racha l’imoteinu
May the source of strength,
Who blessed the ones before us,
Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing,
and let us say, Amen.
Mi shebeirach imoteinu
M’kor habrachah l’avoteinu
Bless those in need of healing with r’fuah sh’leimah,
The renewal of body, the renewal of spirit,
And let us say, Amen
Debbie Friedman, z”l
Debbie Friedman – Mi Shebeirach (2001)
Debbie Friedman would always teach that she would sing it through one time for all of us and then we could join in. It was a nice tradition and it was based on another prayer, that Moses said for his sister Miriam. El Na Refana La. Please G-d, heal her. A simple prayer of healing. Just 4 words when Miriam was struck with a skin disease. And she was healed. Debbie Friedman’s version of Misheberach, which we usually do at CKI is not the only setting. Here is Craig Taubman doing a combination of Misheberach and El Na Refana La.
Here is another version of El Na Refa Na La done at Hadassah Hospital. It won the Hadassah Song Festival.
Hadassah Healing Prayer “El Na Refa Na La” by Yair Levi and Shai Sol – רפא נא-עם ארגון נשות הדסה
Asher Yatzar, The Bathroom Prayer
At the beginning of our Saturday morning service there is a prayer for healing that is often described as the bathroom prayer. Yes, it is the prayer that people say after coming out of the bathroom when everything comes out right. But it also talkes about G-d being the healer of all flesh. G-d is the ultimate doctor. I love the fact that 2000 years ago the rabbis understood that the body is a finely balanced network. I have seen that with patients today. A specialist, a cardiologist or a pulminologist or a nephrologist could keep any one organ going almost indefinately but keeping all of them going at the same time can become impossible.
Baruch Atah Adonai, Ehloheinu Melech Ha’olam, asher yatzar et Ha’adam b’chochmah u’vara vo n’kavim, n’kavim, chalulim, chalulim. Galui v’yadu’ah lifnei chiseh ch’vodecha she’im yipate’ach echad m’hem o y’satem echad m’hem, ee-efshar l’hitkayem v’la’amod l’fanecha. Barcuh Ata Adonai, rofeh chol basar u’mafli la’asot.
“Blessed is our Eternal God, Creator of the universe, who has made our bodies with wisdom, combining veins, arteries, and vital organs into a finely balanced network. Wonderous Fashioner and Sustainer of life, Source of our health and strength, we give You thanks and praise.” (Gates of Prayer translation, page 284)
Amidah:
In the Amidah, the second paragraph called the G’vurot that talks about G-d’s strength, has one line in it. “You sustain life through love, giving life to all (reviving the dead) through great compassion, supporting the fallen, healing the sick, (v’refuah holim) freeing the captive, keeping faith with those who sleep in the dust.”
I often pause on that phrase just slightly to think about those I am praying for.
On Shabbat, even G-d rests so we don’t ask for anything. During the weekday Amidah, there is one of the 18 blessings that is a request for healing. Here is the Lev Shalom translation:
Heal us Adonai that we may be healed. Save us Adonai that we may be saved. You are the one deserving of praise. Bring complete healing to all of our suffering. For you are G-d and Sovereign, a faithful and compassionate healer. Baruch Atah Adonai, Healer of the ill among your people Israel.
Adon Olam:
Often I sing the last paragraph of Adon Olam in the hospital with something. I use a Debbie Friedman version that is like a lullaby…
B’yado afkid ruchi
b’et ishan v’airah. V’im ruchi g’viati
Adonai li v’lo irah.
I have stood with nurses in the ICU and watched in amazement as someone’s blood pressure has stabilized.
It is important to know with the relatively new HIPPA laws, the hospitals cannot call us to tell us you are in the hospital so unless you or a friend or relative call, we do not know. And we do not share that information unless you give us permission. So call us. We care.
If you, yourself are in need of healing, you may need other things. Meals, transportation to medical appointments, babysitting, shoveling. These are things your CKI community can help with. It is part of being community.
How does all of this tie to the parsha, the portion? Tune back in tomorrow and you’ll see. In the meantime, I pray with you and for you for a refuat hanefesh, refuat haguf, a full, complete healing of mind, body and spirit.