Jewish Healing: A Hot Topic
by Velvel "Wally" Spiegler

Sometime ago I was discussing the future of Jewish healing with my friend Martin, a researcher who has written a number of scholarly papers and books on esoteric Jewish subjects. We reached an impasse, one day, when Martin insisted that authentic Jewish healing would not be known until some scholar discovers long-lost documents dating back before the destruction of the Temple. I argued that Jewish healing is known: it has always been known and it is as clear as the nose on his face. Since we can't demonstrate Martin's point of view, I can share mine.

What makes the existence of Jewish healing so clear is that it's intimately connected with our culture. There has never been a culture in history of civilization that has not had a healing system to care for the health of its people. The Jewish healing system, I explained to Martin, is built into the very spiritual nature of Judaism: we are a holy people, a nation of priests. Spirituality and healing are synonymous; they are connected by the Torah's mandate to continually draw nearer to G-d, the true healer.
The body and the mind has the innate ability to heal itself, but it requires some effort on our part. We know from Kabbalah and every other healing system that health is a balanced state of energy. Illness is imbalance and healing is the process of rebalancing. Imbalances could have a host of causes which would generally include physical or emotional trauma and stress, the leading cause of every disease known to man.
We need to begin the healing process by taking responsibility for our stress and tensions. We need to understand that all healing is self-healing and not the work of any physician, therapist or teacher.  Health
professionals can assist us, but we need to do the work.  Once we venture out into the world of self-responsibility, we empower ourselves towards healing.
What was so clear, that Martin couldn't see, was that the work of Torah contains everything we need to effect deep healing now and since the beginning of Jewish history.  Living a Jewish spiritual lifestyle, with all the demands incumbent on it, is the first prerequisite to genuine Jewish healing.  We need to learn more Torah and to perform more Mitzvot. This may seem out-of-sync with today's lifestyle yet Torah is the body which conceals the spiritual healing energy and Mitzvot are the actions which manifests that energy into our lives. We need a new breed of Torah teachers who not only understand energy healing but can clearly transmit these teachings to others. Jewish spirituality with its emphasis on korbannot which we translate in English as 'sacrifice' but in Hebrew has the deeper meaning of 'drawing nearer'. The nearer we come to the true healer, the more effective the healing. Kabbalah-concerned with energy systems-also provides us with a multitude of healing techniques that could include prayer, meditation, visualization and several forms of bodywork.

You may ask, since we have acupuncturists, Reiki practitioners, Yoga teachers and every conceivable healer representing all the Eastern religions, who needs Jewish healing? Besides our own personal need for healing, Judaism today is facing a crisis with many insidious threats impinging upon us: assimilation, secularity, intermarriage, plurality issues, anti-Semitism to name a few. We need to maintain our culture, our tradition, our identity and to preserve our continuity.  When cultures are diluted, the people within succumb to illness and exile; consider, for example, the fate of the Eskimos and the American Indians.
I was on the phone the other day with Susan Saxe, the director of Aleph, the central organization of Jewish renewal. I told her I was calling about my involvement with Jewish healing. "Jewish healing is a hot topic today; it's sweeping the country." she said. "We need to get more Jewish teachers and healers involved; we also need to get more Jews to understand the power of Jewish healing." Maybe now Martin will agree with me.

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