Caring for the sick

Synagogue volunteers form groups to help ill congregants

MICHAEL MIKLOFSKY
Staff Writer

Bea Nadata, a resident of the Kivel Care Center, lights Shabbat candles with Rabbi Martin Scharf before Friday night services at the Kivel Campus of Care. Scharf regularly leads Shabbat and other holiday services for Kivel residents. Photo courtesy of Crystal Corriere

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Smiles are infectious and some say it's the best care one can give.

But while smiles may not necessarily have an impact healthwise, a positive attitude can, says Rabbi Sholom Lew, spiritual leader at Chabad of the West Valley.

"One of the interesting things that you find in the Talmud is that - and this is an approach to sickness and illness in Judaism - is that when a person does have a visitor, a percentage of the (illness) is taken away with each person that comes to visit."

Caring for the sick is very important to the Jewish way of life and fulfilling God's commandments, as outlined in the Torah. It comes from the story of Abraham who was visited by an angel after accepting God's commandment of circumcision.

"It's mentioned in the Talmud, from Talmudic times and in the Midrash ... it's so much mentioned ... the idea and the mitzvah bikkur cholim," he adds. "In fact, it's one of those mitzvahs which is being commented on in the Midrash regarding when Abraham was sitting by the tent and God, as it were, came to visit the sick and sent the angel to him."

Bikkur cholim is the act of caring for the sick and one of many acts of gemilut chasadim (loving kindness) that a Jewish person is commanded to perform.

Nowadays, many synagogues throughout the country have bikkur cholim groups, made up of congregants who voluntarily visit the hospital rooms and homes of their fellow congregants to wish them well and provide meals or other services that an ill person might need.

Nancy Cohen, mem-bership vice president at Har Zion Congre-gation, a Conservative synagogue in Scotts-dale, runs one such group.

"Weekly, we check to see who in our con-gregation has been hospitalized, or who is home and follow up with that," she says.

Cohen and three others try to ensure that those who are ill have a peaceful Shab-bat, despite their cir-cumstances, and will bring challah, grape juice and candles to people in a hospital, or who have recently been released from one.

Kay Lapid, admini-strator at Temple Beth Sholom, a Conservative synagogue in Chan-dler, organizes another group, Chevrat Bikkur Cholim. When the synagogue is notified of an ill congregant, the group is notified and given contact information.

"They take it upon themselves to contact the ill person or his or her family either by phone, sending them cards, or visiting them in person," she says. "The rabbi, as well, usually visits most of the people, if not all of them, that are on our list of people that are needing support."

The synagogue also puts the list of ill congregants in its weekly newsletter, asking for the prayers of the congregation.

At Beth El Congregation in Phoenix, Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky, the synagogue's spiritual leader, says that bikkur cholim is of great importance to him, and something that he keeps as a focal point of his rabbinic work.

"People who are in need of pastoral care in times of illness are certainly deserving of our attention and it needs to be a major priority for us," he says. "It's usually several days a week that I'm called to different hospitals to visit members and I do my very best to cover everyone that comes to my attention. The problem is, not everyone comes to my attention."

But there are other issues complicating Lavinsky's ability to visit all of Beth El's congregants who may be ill during a given week.

Because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, hospitals must abide by certain laws of confidentiality, which make it difficult for hospital visitors to know who to visit.

The new HIPAA rules are, "probably the most serious challenge to seeing people in a timely fashion," he says.

"For example, if Mr. Cohen calls me and tells me his wife is at X hospital, it used to be that I used to go to X hospital and ask them for their Jewish patient list, and I'd see if there was anyone else Jewish or from my congregation and I could make a courtesy visit," Lavinsky adds. "Now, those things are a thing of the past, I can't even look at those lists anymore."

Also, managed care and other insurance issues have made hospital stays much shorter than they used to be and someone could be in and out of a facility in a day or two, leaving a small window of opportunity to visit an ill person, he says.

During his High Holiday sermons, Lavinsky says he will make a push to get congregants involved in Beth El's bikkur cholim group. But it's important that the people who join that group also study the laws and traditions of bikkur cholim, he says.

"You don't just sit next to somebody on their bed and tell them you hope they feel better. There are spiritual needs that need to be met, privacy needs, and one needs to be sensitive to fit the bill ... to do what's necessary at that very moment."

Lew, at Chabad of the West Valley, a Jewish community center located in Glendale, says that a group organized by his congregants provides similar services and will travel outside the state or country on occasion if they receive a call for duty.

"It's not just synagogue people, but people who might have contacted us from other sources," he says. "We get calls from out-of-state quite often and (people) ask us to go and visit people in different places.

"A week ago, I got a call from someone in Toronto ... and she has requested that we can send a bikkur cholim group to a relative of theirs who was in their home and which we did," Lew adds.

But Chabad of the West Valley's bikkur cholim group reaches out to more than just those that are ill in the hospital, at home, or outside the city, state or country.

"An important fact, which is not always incorporated with many conventional bikkur cholim groups, is the visitation to people who are in various institutions for things such as substance abuse or other things, which need extra help," Lew says.

To care for many of the sick, nursing homes and assisted and independent living facilities are available to the public, many of which have large Jewish populations and provide transportation to and from Shabbat services.

Rabbi Martin Scharf, director of the Jewish Community Chaplaincy Council, is the chaplain at Kivel Campus of Care.

He says that his view and knowledge of Judaism helps him to lend help to others through prayer.

"There is the use of Psalms ... there is the use of different things ritually," Scharf says. "For some people, it's just a matter of knowing there are services that comfort within their illness. But also there's what I feel is the rejoicing of Judaism, the celebration of Judaism, and many times to be able to put a smile on somebody's face who is ill gives them pause in their illness."

Scharf's care for the ill extends past the end of the bed, where he might stand to visit a resident, or the chapel, where he might lead services. He says that Judaism can't necessarily be expressed in prayer.

"In services, it's not just in prayer, it's Judaism as a way of life and a way of living life to the fullest and enjoying life to the fullest, that even though they may be ill, even though they may be in the nursing home, even though they may feel that this is their last stop so to speak, and their life will end here, doesn't mean that their life is over," he says.

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