Re: Sickness

 1) Well, first off we know that the shechina dwells above the bed of a sick person. And we know that the schechina dwells in a room with a minyan. 

You could draw some interesting, and perhaps misleading or perhaps not, conclusions from this.


2) about permanent illness or injury, i have the following insights: 
A Woman has fewer obligations than a Man. This is because the Man has more (naturally) un-fulfilled spiritual 'inputs'/'needs' than a Woman. (In other words a Man is less complete)
Now, a deaf person or a blind person has fewer requirements still than a person who can see or hear. Following this reasoning, they have still fewer spiritual needs and so need fewer mitzwoth to address those needs.
As far as I see it, a permanent injury/sickness/defect fulfills the need related to the mitzwoth the injured person is no longer responsible to perform.

3) taking points 1 and 2 together above, perhaps even temporary illness completes (for a time) a person in ways such that debillitate them (in the physical sense). This lack of spiritual need that is produced by illness is perhaps what raises the spiritual level of the one who is ill. This raising occurrs to such an extent that the shechina itself is present during great illness. The person who is ill has risen to a spiritual level comparable to the combined spiritual nature of 10 healthy Jewish Men.

---
This logic might seem very convoluted and backwards.. but it sometimes helps to view everything we think we know about the world (ie. illness is bad, physical power is desirable.) on its head. (illness brings one closer to God, physical weakness may denote spiritual strength)
[and of course: ilness may bring one closer to God in that when one is sick.. the whole world seems to shrink to that of oneself.. giving one a new perception of 'one-ness' otherwise only achievable as a baby or a greatly aged person. And spiritual strength (though initially begotten of physical weakness) eventually leads to limitless physical strength (ie: yaacov moving the stone off the well, moshe awake for 120 days without sleeping or eating, eliyahu running for 40 days and 40 nights, also without sleeping or eating.)

Tue May 22, 2001 12:02 pm