My childhood memories of being sick bring visualizations of a smaller me lying in bed listening to my sisters go off to school and later staying in bed in my pajamas drinking tea and feeling rightfully sorry for myself. “I’m too sick to get up and daven” I would tell my doting mother. Her rhetorical response completely in line with her no-nonsense Yekkishe upbringing was “Do you think not davening is going to make you better?”

The Midrash teaches that until the time of Yaakov Avinu people did not become ill before they died. There was no alarm system that reminded a person of his transient status on this earth. Yaakov Avinu asked for sickness as an impetus for self-introspection and evaluation. Indeed we find that in Parashas Vayechi Yaakov makes a cheshbon hanefesh as he prepares to leave This World.

Thankfully not every illness we face heralds imminent death. But every situation that reminds us of our ephemeral reality is an opportunity to embellish the part of us that lives eternally — our souls.

The Bond between Body and Soul

Rav Ephraim Waxman shlita shares a mashal that illustrates this point. Parents await the doctor’s evaluation of their only long-awaited newborn child. A doctor looks at them solemnly and proclaims “I’m afraid your child has been born with a serious condition from which there is no known recovery.”

Bewildered the parents say “There must be something — a medicine a therapy a treatment — that can help. Is there really no hope for survival?”

The answer — succinct clear and ever resounding — is “Your child has LIFE!”

Upon entry into This World we all receive the gift of life. Rav Waxman teaches us that this gift comes with no insurance policy. The damages are ours to incur and the benefits are ours to accrue. The only guarantee we have is that all life in This World eventually comes to an end.

The bond between the body and soul is tailor-made for that soul’s journey in This World. Cognizance of this journey empowers a person to maximize the opportunities that his body gives his soul. Any compromise of the body’s function only comes to further emphasize the primacy of the soul.

The parallels between illnesses of the body and those of the soul are depicted by Rav Eliyahu Dessler ztz”l (Michtav MeEliyahu 4:251). He outlines the various categories of physical sickness as follows: 1) an illness limited to one area of the body; 2) an illness that can spread to other areas; 3) a hidden illness of which the person himself is unaware; 4) an illness for which it is hard to find proper treatment; and 5) an illness that is so overwhelming that one doesn’t know to whom to turn.

Each of these categories has a spiritual parallel: 1) We are often aware that we have one particular middah or weakness that we should try to change. 2) Sometimes the spiritual weakness is so insidious that it can spread to other areas of our spiritual lives. 3) Other times we are completely unaware of the spiritual virus that is eating away at our inner selves. 4) We may know we are struggling but can’t find the proper guidance to return us to the proper path. 5) Sadly we despair of trying to help ourselves and ignore our spiritual malady as it gnaws away at us.

Pleading for Mercy

The Gemara (Brachos 10b) teaches that Chizkiyahu HaMelech did six significant things in his lifetime three of which the Sages agreed with and three with which they did not. The first of the three actions that they considered beneficial to the world is hiding the Sefer Refuos the mysterious Book of Remedies.

Asks Rav Mordechai Gifter ztz”l: Shouldn’t a Sefer Refuos bring tremendous benefit to the world? How much time is wasted on searching for treatments waiting for doctors — time which could have been utilized for Torah study and chesed? What was the good in hiding such a book?

Rashi gives us the answer: “Kedei sheyevakshu rachamim — so that they will ask for [Hashem’s] mercy.”

Over the years I have spent countless hours in doctors’ offices hospitals and various medical establishments. I have entrusted my body’s care to nurses surgeons and anesthesiologists. I have stared at the light above the operating table as I have felt my awareness slip and softly whispered beneath my mask “Ein od Milvado there is no one but Him.”

How humbling it is to recognize our bodies’ frailties. How empowering it is to recognize our neshamah’s innate strength. “Kol zeman shehaneshamah b’kirbi — as long as my neshamah is in me” “modeh ani — I can be modeh.”

Rav Yitzchak Hutner ztz”l explains that the root of the word modeh means two interrelated things: I admit and I thank. When I am reminded of my body’s utter reliance on the Ribono shel Olam I can readily admit that I am dependent on Him. This reminder allows me to be thankful for yet another opportunity for my neshamah to interact with the world through the body Hashem gave me.

In Peleh Yo’etz Rav Eliezer Papo warns us not to squander illness. Regardless of where the sickness leads us we must maximize it for teshuvah and davening for mercy since the greatest tefillah for the choleh is his own as the pasuk says about Yishmael “And Hashem heard the voice of the lad” (Bereshis 21:17).

The Whole Healing

We daven every day for a “refuas hanefesh u’refuas haguf” a healing of the soul and the body linking the body’s healing to the soul’s. We yearn for a refuah in This World so that the neshamah can continue to accomplish. Yet we know that we cannot completely fathom our neshamah’s journey but must trust that it is perfectly calibrated by the Healer of All Flesh.

Working each summer in Camp Simcha I am constantly reminded of the neshamah’s journey and of how much we don’t understand. The most painful cry is that of a child who asks the age-old question: “Why me?”

Why me?! It echoes in the annals of Jewish history.

Again and again the Gemara tells us that tzaddikim suffer because Hashem desires their prayers. But still why?

One would think that by virtue of being a tzaddik says Rav Dessler the tzaddik has already reached the apex of closeness with Hashem. But no it is worthwhile for him to suffer just to achieve additional closeness to the Ribono shel Olam through prayer.

Not always does a tzaddik receive what he davens for. Rav Dessler is teaching that the opportunity for tefillah is the opportunity to further strengthen the soul. We hope that the sick person’s tefillah will achieve a physical refuah. We cannot however lose sight of the fact that the spiritual awareness one can encounter when sick is a valuable opportunity to heal the maladies of the soul.

A friend whose husband is fighting a dreaded illness told me “When he was initially diagnosed we thought our lives had fallen from 100 to 0 but now we realize that what we have accomplished spiritually has taken us from 0 to 100!”

“Why me?” is a question for every nisayon in life. Hashem didn’t make us privy to the information of why He tailor-made this nisayon for us and even Moshe Rabbeinu the greatest navi in history was told “No man can see Me and live” (Shemos 33:20). Yet although life in This World precludes the knowledge of the inner workings of our Creator it doesn’t preclude the ability to grow closer to Him through our bitachon teshuvah and tefillah.

Our neshamah’s journey is a journey toward unity with its Creator. Just as our nation awaits the day that we can unite with our Creator in perfect unity we know that the day will come when all souls will reunite with their bodies in total physical and spiritual health. Until then we should all know that every opportunity our bodies give us to better our souls is a chance to gain strength for our journey.