Maavor Yabok - Siftay Tzedek (Lips of Righteousness) Chapter 2
In this translation Rabbi Steven Moss has interlaced his comments and marked them with {brackets}. As you read the Hebrew, the English translation, and the comments of Rabbi Moss, you may have questions or comments of your own. Feel free to address these to the entire list.
Chapter 2
{This chapter begins with a beautiful teaching that answers the question, How does the visitor ask G-d’s mercy upon the sick person? What does he/she say or reflect upon? The answer is given by reciting or meditating on the well-known verse, Psalm 91:10,11. Berehciah than offers a wonderful explication of the verse. Keep in mind that for him Lillith and Samael were real spiritual beings that brought evil into the peoples’ lives. Angels were also very real. The question to ask yourself (assuming you do not take these literally; how can these “spiritual beings” be translated into modern terminology to aid you in your visitations?) This chapter deals with the question of meditations, reflections, and visualizations as an inspiration for fulfilling the mitzvah of Bikur Holim. If the visitor can develop a powerful kavaanah, then will not this benefit the effect of the visit? What do you do when you visit?}
The way to request mercy upon visiting the sick begins when entering the presence of the sick person. It will be appropriate to say the verse, “There shall no evil befall you, Neither shall any plague come near your tent.” so that Lillith will not cause evil to befall him, and no injury from Samael will approach your tent, as it says in Zohar Behshallach page 65a, “Call her evil of the sick”, that from them every kind of injury and sickness and causes of death come. In addition it is written, “”for He will give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways”, and they are the angels of the Holy One Blessed be He, “He will charge over you” unifying them with you, “to keep you” by these angels, and when they are with the person the Shechinah is found there, “to keep you in all your ways”, and these are the paths from malchut {the lowest Sefirah closest to human beings} to tiferet {at the heart-center of the Divine} and from tiferet to malchut by yesod {the Sefirah that is the conduit from the higher spiritual levels to the lower ones} as it is called. And he will meditate further on the forces that emanate from the heavenly king for the healings of all flesh that are appointed within the heavenly halls. Also as he says, “He gives His angels charge over you”, that the visitor visualizes pipes of lights that are assigned to watch over the exit of the nehsamah {highest level of the soul} lest its exit is blocked if, G-d forbid, death is decreed upon it, and it is written in Sabbah (Zohar Hamishpatim) page 98b “because the Holy One blessed be He walks upon the wings of the ruach to bring healing to the world, and that is Raphael that emanates from malchut and received from tiferet and there extends and heals by the power of Heavenly Keter {the very highest most exalted Sefirah}. And thus the words of prayer “Heal us O Lord”, come from the Long Face {the highest spiritual level of the Divine}, and this is the heart of the meditation, for it draws healing by way of the first three Sefirot {Keter, Hochmah and Binah} to Hesed, and the Keter does not emanate to the sefirot except by the way of Hesed, and healing below by Tiferet and Malchut, that nun and vav are the mystery of the neshamaot of Israel that are found in Tiferet by the letter vav {the middle letter of the tetragrammaton Name of G-d that represents the connection between the upper and lower Sefirot}, and found in malchut by way of the letter nun {the last letter of the word Adonai, aleph-dalet-vav-nun, and thereby representing the lowest of the levels of the Divine in our world of existence} that are needed for the healing process, and thereby they are called Cholay Ahavah, Sickness of Love that these letters in meditation are needed for the unification in order for healing to occur.
{Take note of the following prayer. Is it one that you could use for your visits? Would you want to modify it? Can you offer to our on-line study group any suggestions?}
And if the sick person is a master of Torah, the visitor will say: “May it be Your will that there be blessing from the mouth of the Holy One blessed be He and His Shechinah by every aspect and level, by His 10 Sefirot, by all His names, by the 4 pillars and the six legs of the throne, and from all the lights of the Yeshivah, and from all the angels, and from all the families above and below, very speedily, that a full healing will come about, and you will be healed from your wounds from the river of the Ancient Holy One, and salvation will sprout for you speedily, and great mercy will be bestowed upon you along with all the sick of His people Israel that are in need of mercy, amen, selah, and further, may it be Your will…” (see further on page 96)
And some of the spiritually enlightened from the time the Temple still stood when they visited the sick quite often would say, “This one lives and this one dies.” And all this in the first glance upon entering the room, seeing his appearance and then knowing if he will live or die. This is described in parashat Vayakhel 117b, “ is called Glance”, that the Cohain would recognize immediately, by the force of the letters of the Name that were engraved on him, if the man standing before him was righteous or evil. This would occur immediately upon visiting for the vision would not last. And the skeptic would explain this as having something to do with the closing of the eyes and seeing lights, thereby, hinting at the heavenly chariots, and by closing the eyes quickly seeing animals going back and forth as seen by Ezekiel (Ez. 1:14).
{Although, you as visitor might not have such psychic insights as to the future of the person you are visiting, assuming you would even want to, what can this teach us? We talk about the non-verbal cues we receive from some one. If a person is speaking in a very cheerful manner but we see on the face that there is great concern (the vision!!) can we then use that as a help in our talking with this person to reach the deeper level of his/her emotions? Many a time I have walked into a patient’s room and said, “I see you look… today? Is this the way you are feeling? “This confrontation of the non-verbal can open many doors. Maybe the mystics were saying, if you read a person’s face you learn a great deal about the person.}
By the way, this will not stop us from explaining the words, “… as the appearance of lightening.” (Ez. 1:14) as I found in Sefer Yetzirah the observation that the Sefirot observe and look at each other, is as a light going out from potsherds, meaning that if you will take potsherd, and you poke thin openings in it, and you will place in it fire, and you will blow upon the fire until it starts to burn, small various colors will rise up through the openings, going up and down; thus with the glance of the animals that are on the paths above each other, that is throne upon throne and glory upon glory, that their glances will send sparks of light like electricity in all kinds of colors, and from their fear of looking into the Shechinah they are to run back and forth from looking; thus the appearance is with a glance and revealed and is hidden as the blinking of an eye or lines going up and down as the blinking of an eye. From this the Master of Mystery say that if a person looks at you and immediately looks down to the earth, looks up, and then looks down that know that this person fears you, but if he looks at you without flinching nor looking away, know that he despises you in his heart, and about this it is said (Exodus 33:20) “No man will see Me and live”, and in Bamidbar Rabbah 14:22 it says, “Even the holy creatures.”
{This section is not easy to understand, although some of it is just common knowledge as to body language and the way a person looks at another. This is also a commentary on the section of Ezekiel regarding the animals under the Throne of Glory. I think what he is trying to do is to find a biblical source for the above stated custom of the mystics, when visiting the sick, to be able to determine a person’s future by looking at the person by just a quick glance. It seems he is joining from the tradition, as well as real life (the potsherds), the observation and teaching that what is seen, even quickly, can tell so much and have such great affect. Again, the importance for us is to know that the body language, the facial appearance, and yes the way a person looks at another tells, a wealth of information that can be helpful to the visitor no less the counselor.}
And they said in the Zohar 218b, “In this way the Plate (the fire-pan upon which the incense was placed and burnt in Temple times) secured atonement for the arrogant and the insolent. The letters of the Divine Name engraved on it stood out shining and flashing, and whoever looked at that flashing had to cast down his eyes in fear, and become contrite of heart, and this the Plate effected their atonement, Of a similar potency was the Incense. For whoever smelled the smoke of the pillar that ascended from the ‘smoke raiser’ became cleansed of heart and intent on worshipping his Master: the taint of the evil disappeared from him, leaving him to serve with single heart his Father in heaven. The incense thus possessed the potency of breaking completely the evil spirit in man.” (Talmud Yerushalmi Shabbat chapter 13 halachah 3).