Jewish End of Life Practices - Visiting the Sick
By: Rabbi Eva Sax-Bolder, Community Rabbi Boulder, CO
Visiting the Sick
(Bikkur Cholim)
Courtesy of Kavod V’Nichun www.kavodvnichum.org
Rabbi Dayle Friedman emphasizes accompanying people: “We walk along with those we serve in the course of their journeys through suffering, illness, change, and joy. Like Miriam, who stood and watched as baby Moses sat in his basket on the banks of the Nile, our greatest gift is sometimes simply being present alongside our people. We join them, at times offering encouragement or concrete help, at other times simply witnessing their endurance, their pain, and with God’s help, their resiliency … We meet the people with whom we work, in the words of the Torah, ba’asher hu sham (where he or she is), in whatever they are experiencing, wherever they are…” (From Jewish Pastoral Care, 2nd ed., 2005, p. xv).
“Our greatest gift is sometimes simply being present.”
One aspect of this holy work of visiting those who are ill is coming to terms with our own health challenges and mortality. One of the most helpful ways is to start by trying to understand your personal death awareness by taking a moment and recalling the number of times today you’ve thought about your own — not someone else’s — death or limited span of life. Maybe you thought about your age and evaluated your own progress towards certain life goals. Or perhaps you briefly experienced a fear of dying. Some days you may act and think as if you’re going to live forever. The purpose of this exercise is to raise your personal death awareness so that you may begin to perceive an entire range of choices about your life and death that you might not have been aware of.
From this perspective of humble awareness of one’s own limitations and mortality, we enter the world of those who are ill, and try as best we can to be there to support them, where they are, as they are, as who they are, while they navigate the challenges facing them. Sometimes just being there, in silence, is enough. Just having an open heart can provide tremendous support. At other times, we might read to a patient or sing to them or pray with them. It depends on where they are and what brings them joy and consolation, and possibly hope. Our human acts of mercy, compassion and empathy make it possible for us to endure, to suffer the sometimes excruciatingly painful limits and losses.
Bikur cholim is an act of simple kindness. It is giving of one’s self to aid another who is in need of help. Anything we can do to help lessen the suffering of another is a mitzvah. And, who knows, your visit might be the last bit of comfort this person receives before they die.