Healing From The Inside Out

Jewish healing is experiencing an unprecedented popularity in this country, greater then it ever knew.  What’s behind this all? It can be nothing less then an outgrowth of the human growth movement of the Seventies. Most people, including many Jews, engaged in all sorts of self-actualization practices, from Yoga to Buddhism but too many Jews found these alien lifestyles to far removed from their heritage. In the late Eighties, Jewish healing entered the scene, but its course was, and stills remains, undeveloped, submissive, and nothing more than consoling. Healing circles (prayer groups to pray for the sick), recitation of healing psalms and visiting the sick (at home or in the hospital) are the procedures, even through today.  It functions like a Band-Aid for those in a state of shock over loss or illness.

We need to bring Jewish healing into a new level of actively teaching our people to take an active role in their own healing. In my practice of holistic healing, every colleague I ever met denied any responsibility for a client’s recovery. They all confirm that healing comes from God; the healer merely serves as a conduit to channel healing light from above. Everyone I speak to acknowledges that all healing is self-healing; the client alone is responsible for his own renewed state of health. There is a difference between healing and curing, as in getting over an illness. Healing is holistic, meaning that it operates on all levels of the human organism, from the physical to the spiritual. Our spiritual work (contemplative prayer, meditation, and Torah) filters its way down through our mental and physical components, healing what is needed as it travels downward.

Jewish healing begins with the Torah’s concern for purification. What does it mean to be pure? Is it really possible for anyone to become purified? This subject, of overwhelming importance for healing and spiritual connection, is rarely discussed in the synagogue and then only regarding rules of law.

The Torah is quite clear on the requirements for purity. It specifies purity requirements for the priest, for the sacrificial animal and for anyone who wishes to redeem himself before God, something we should be doing more often. Purity in short, is freedom from sin. But what exactly is sin? It is a state of exile, a state of spiritual blemish or any act that further distances us from God.  It’s like a bad file in your computer’s operating system or a missing letter in your DNA code that leads to poor behavior and unpleasant emotions. We commonly understand sin as opposed to right, but right is difficult to define, especially when right is often whatever one thinks is right. Sacrifice is the Torah’s prescription for purification. Since the destruction of the Temple ending any possibility for sacrificial rites, the Rabbis declared prayer as the suitable substitute. Prayer, as sacrifice once functioned, strengthens our relationship with God; it brings us closer to the Light. The energy that operates our known universe, which contains the power of healing, is known in Jewish terminology as Light. The essence of Light, among other positive attributes, contains love, peace and balance, all essential for healing.

From the depths of Jewish mysticism we unearth three critical phases of the world: the original unity as described in the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden. Next, splitting into opposites, shattering and exile, the state we all currently live in, not exile from the land of Israel, but exile from ourselves, from others, and from God.   Finally the unification and integration of the opposites, the return to the Land of Canaan. The road to unification is also known as “Tikkun, in Hebrew meaning repair or restoration, otherwise defined as putting things back where they belong according to God’s original unity. A picture of health is evidence of the unity. Illness therefore can be viewed as some aspect of your being shattered and in need of repair. The symptoms, we experience, result from being stuck too far from the center of unity. We need to regain our original harmony: physical stability like the balance between sodium and potassium; emotional balance as between fear and love; and mental equilibrium that exists between optimism and pessimism. When we’re split we avoid what we don’t want and cling to what we desire; the alternative is living with equanimity, with balance. Living spiritually, the on-going quest for the Divine brings down the Divine Light which brings about healing. To heal is balancing one extreme with it’s opposite.

Spirituality is the foundation of healing. Symptoms are emergency flashers telling us we’re too far to one end of the split. So why wait for symptoms to rear their ugly head? Why not take steps now to ward off the roots of illness? The Torah outlines the course to wellness in the journey back to the Land of Canaan. It’s your choice.