The Mi Shebeirach: How our Prayer for Strength and Healing Came to Be (March 11, 2016 Shabbat Sermon)
by Rabbi Amy R. Perlin, D.D.
For us, it all begins with love. You can’t really explain love, can you? Not really. How can you explain that full feeling you have when you share love, like having eaten a great meal. Love is the reason we caress a feverish head, clean diapers we would never touch, offer our shoulder to get wet with someone else’s tears, and make sacrifices we might never dream of making, if we didn’t love. And we know that we have loved, when an emptiness fills our being and lingers forever, when our love is shattered by loss. Love is the cup of tea and bowl of chicken soup prepared and served before anyone asks, the sleepless day turned night as you sit by a bedside, holding a frail hand as your lips move and say, “I’m here, I won’t leave you.” I can’t really explain love, but I think you understand. At least, I hope you do.
If you have ever loved, then you have prayed. It is now a scientific fact, but even if researchers had not taken the time to prove that people pray for those they love, I believe it is true in my heart. I have prayed for everyone I care about at one time or another. You have prayed, too. You have prayed to pass tests and win games. You have prayed to survive punishment or hardship, illness or fear. You have prayed for people you know and love, and for nameless children and their parents as their stories of tragedy unfold in the news each day.
You have bargained and negotiated with God. The rationalist and the existentialist, the agnostic and the atheist among you have prayed at sometime, somewhere, in your lives. If not for yourself, or because you believe in God, then because you love and care and feel — you have prayed. We pray because we want to protect the people we love at every level of existence and we want to cover all of our bases. Whether or not we call it prayer, we send the love of our hearts to those who need hope, healing, or wholeness. You have prayed the words of your heart from the depths of your soul. I know you have. And so have I.
As Jews, we have a rich liturgical heritage. There is no shortage of prayers in our 5776 year history. When it comes to healing, we have a history of public prayer and private prayer, prayers said at the Torah by the community for the members of the community and prayers said by individuals for one another and even for themselves.
Our Jewish prayers for healing do not take the “If… then…” form of bargaining and negotiating that we have all done with God. Our Jewish prayers for healing call upon the God of our ancestors, those who came before us, to help us find the strength and courage to endure illness and suffering and the uncertainty of our mortality. They try to encourage us to have strength in times of adversity and to find hope at times of greatest fear. And when we pray for others, our traditional prayers for healing, like the Mi Shebeirach, enable us to feel less helpless in the face of things we have no control over.
The Mi Shebeirach has become very important to us at Temple B’nai Shalom and in the Reform movement as a whole. It has now become our custom, our minhag, to say the Mi Shebeirach, the prayer for the sick, at every service, every time we pray. We were one of the first congregations to permanently insert this prayer into our prayerbooks and I thoughtfully chose the location before the silent prayer, when the liturgy didn’t really have a place for it, if there was not a Torah service. We were flying blind 30 years ago when we made the conscious decision to make the Mi Shebeirach an accessible and constant in our prayer lives. And when I was growing up, there was no such thing as a Mi Shebeirach list. I can’t imagine not having that list now.
Years ago, I had a section on the history of the Mi Shebeirach in my rabbinic thesis on the Torah Service. The prayer had its origins in Babylonia, as a means to bless the congregation. The earliest siddur/prayerbook has it said only on Mondays and Thursdays, probably as a way to get people to show up for the Torah services those days, as everyone came on Shabbat, but not everyone came those mornings. That original Mi Shebeirach said, “May God bless all those brothers and sisters who come to the synagogue for prayer and to give tzedakah.” It asked God to hear their prayers and to give them everything they asked for. Eventually, it was so popular that it was added to the Shabbat service. Who wouldn’t want to have prayer that asked God to deliver all good things, because you came to services and gave tzedakah?
The scholar Heinemann, says that there was also a Mi Shebeirach that was said to pray for the congregation after the rabbi’s sermon. I’m sure many congregants needed that. All scholars agree that it began as a prayer for the congregation and only in the 12th century were there Mi Shebeirach prayers being said for individuals, which at the time was quite an innovation.
Some of the most important and frequently discussed versions of the Mi Shebeirach were for the mother of a newborn and for sick babies and children. The variety of those prayers that remain are so very beautiful and heartfelt. As early as the Talmud (Shabbat 12a), we learn that we are supposed to visit the sick on Shabbat and in time, a custom of saying a prayer for the person you visited developed. The rabbis debated whether we could ask God for healing on Shabbat and some of the most famous of the Middle Ages compromised to say that we could bless the critically ill on Shabbat.
There are many versions of the traditional Mi Shebeirach prayer and a host of Mi Shebeirachs for women who made Torah adornments, the Pope, grooms before their wedding, and even those who risked their lives to bury fellow Jews.
Today, we hear the words Mi Shebeirach and we immediately think of our prayers for those who are ill or in need of healing in mind, body, or spirit. Not for the common cold or even the flu, but for serious and life threatening illnesses, surgeries, and chronic or painful conditions. The idea is that without our prayers, hope and healing might not be as forthcoming.
Until the 1980’s, the Mi Shebeirach for the sick could only be found, in its traditional form, in a Rabbi’s Manual.
“May the one who blessed our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and our mothers, Sarah, Rebekkah, Rachel and Leah, bless and bring healing to (and we add a person’s Hebrew name). May the Holy One, blessed be God, have mercy on him, and graciously restore his strength and life. Grant him speedily, a refuah sheleima, a complete recovery, a recovery of the body and the spirit, along with all others of the household of Israel who are sick. And let us say, Amen.”
Historically, people, Jews, were not empowered to say the Mi Shebeirach, nor did they even have a copy for themselves. When I was growing up, the rabbi said a Mi Sheberach for someone at the Torah and the person, who requested it be said, made a donation to the Temple. When I wrote my rabbinic thesis, I discovered many versions of the Mi Shebeirach prayer with the donation part built into the Hebrew, starting in the Middle Ages in France and Germany, where you turned to the individual and in front of the entire congregation asked for his financial pledge in return for having the prayer said FOR you at the Torah. I also have many memories of the rabbi coming to the home or hospital to recite the prayer.
I like what we do at B’nai Shalom much better. I can and do say the Mi Shebeirach for all who are ill, Jews and non-Jews, young and old, members and people I do not even know. We never link our prayers with money in any way. Our custom of making donations on behalf of the sick and those who have recovered is a more meaningful one.
More importantly, you can say the Mi Shebeirach prayer without me – here, or at home, or in the hospital. It seems to take on incredible power when we say it together. Babies look up from feverish slumber, hands become warm, blood pressures go down and we pass strength through touch and holding. I can feel healing, mind and body, connected and assisting one another, when we do say the prayer together, one-on-one or as a congregation. The Mi Shebeirach has the power to connect heaven and earth, mind and body, those who are ill and those who take care of them, in ways that I honestly cannnot explain, and don’t even want to try. The bottom line is that the Mi Sheberach prayer belongs to everyone, everyone who loves, everyone who needs, and everyone who cares. And for many of us, it rivals the Shema as the most important prayer in our service.
When we say or pray the Mi Shebeirach, who are we calling upon? It is to the God of life, and all that life entails, to whom we address our prayers, praying that as our ancestors were blessed with life, ohhj, even if that life had hardship and heartache in full measure, we pray for no less for ourselves and those we love.
Why do we call upon God? Why do we not just rely on medical science and the 21st century wonders of our world? Because, medical science has more questions today than answers. Because now more than ever, we are finding out that people who pray, who have spiritual support networks, do much better statistically than people who do not, with the same medical treatment. Study after study reveals that we are partners in the healing process with the doctors and the medicine, with the nurses and the therapists, and the technicians and the treatments. We can pray all we want, but prayer will not get us a diagnosis. Prayer cannot put off the mammogram, prostate check, stress test or doctor’s visit that can save a life. But, prayer can transform fear into faith and hopelessness into hope.
So we pray. Some people have been praying all of their lives and so it comes naturally. Others, only recognize the importance of prayer when they are in crisis and in need. The beauty of prayer is that it is never too late. We pray, we call upon God for courage and strength, when we don’t have enough to get us through on our own. We call upon God for renewal of body and spirit, for blessing and healing. We call upon God, because that is what we Jews have been doing for all of our lives, with or without the actual Mi Shebeirach prayer.
Once, I was having trouble saying the Mi Shebeirach for someone who I knew might be dying. How could I ask for healing and then deal with a God who said “no?” And then a new perspective dawned on me. The prayer has a power all its own. It helps me feel less impotent in the face of illness and even death. I have learned, over and over again, that even when a cure is not in the cards, the Mi Shebeirach offers something powerful and profound to the patient and the family…and even the rabbi.
I do not pray to God for healing, but rather to be part of the healing process, if possible. I don’t expect an answer from God. I am praying, because I am seeking a way to deal with the illness and pain, from a God who created both the good and the bad, from the God who is the Creator and Sustainer of life in the face of adversity, from a loving Parent who doesn’t always have ultimate power or control and can’t always change the world for us, but wants to help make our lives bearable.
Often times, I find myself unsure, as you do as well. Sometimes, I say the Mi Shebeirach, because I wish there were answers and because I do believe in miracles. Other times, I say it because it brings me closer to this community and the community helps me feel better.
Sometimes the old words of the Rabbi’s Manual seem to work for me. Other times, only the Debbie Friedman version of the Mi Sheberach, the one she wrote after her own illness, is all that brings me strength and comfort. Sometimes, the music heals, when the words seem to fail me. And since Debbie Friedman, many composers have written interpretive Mi Shebeirach prayers with melodies and messages that come out of their need for healing, and add to the reservoir of hope and Jewish musical options for spirituality.
We all need of healing at some time in our lives. We need to heal our souls and our bodies, our minds and our hearts, and even our world from afflictions. We are here to seek renewal of body and spirit, as we begin a new month and as spring begins with crocuses and daffodils. We are here, because we each need a Mi Shebeirach, in the metaphorically cold winter of our lives, for hope, for healing, and for help, for ourselves or for someone we know and care for.
I pray that we will continue to pray. I pray that all of our prayers to the One who blessed our ancestors, will bring us, and all those for whom we pray, courage, healing and strength. I pray, because I love and I care. It all begins and ends with love.