Perri Ardman has been visiting an elderly person weekly since June. Along with 12 other graduates of a class on visiting the sick, she is assisting East Bay rabbis by performing the mitzvah of bikkur cholim, visiting the infirm in hospitals and in their homes.
The anticipation of visiting the sick can make people anxious or uncomfortable. However, those who have participated in the class say that bikkur cholim does as much for them as for those they visit.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to get to know another person in this setting,” said Ardman, an El Cerrito resident. “It’s difficult to put into words. I feel there’s a light shining on both of us when we’re together.”
While rabbis traditionally make visits to sick congregants as well as the unaffiliated, they don’t have time to regularly visit all who are in need of companionship. In order to spread the work around and share the joy bikkur cholim can bring, East Bay community rabbi Zari Weiss started a class to train lay people to make some of those visits to homes and hospitals.
The class, which Weiss will give again in the spring, included participants ranging in age from their 30s up into their 70s. It was sponsored by the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay, Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay and the East Bay Council of Rabbis, and met twice a month for four months.
During the eight sessions, participants role-played, wrote papers and did assignments. With experts in different areas teaching the classes, they learned about Jewish law on illness, techniques for visiting, healing prayers and resources in the community.
“Don’t sit on the bed or at the head of a person,” Weiss instructed the students. “Shechinah [the feminine presence of God] resides at the head of the bed. Sit where the person can see you, on the same level.”
In addition, the students learned “how to say prayers, how to use melodies” for healing.
Although Weiss said that no one was paired up with anyone in the active stages of dying, students were also taught about ethical wills and Jewish confession.
Before making a visit, Ardman thinks about where she is and tries to clear her own head using meditation or prayer so that her personal issues don’t get in the way of the visit.
“The most important thing is to be with that person where that person is. If you come in with an agenda or something you’re trying to accomplish for yourself, that’s not necessarily going to be helpful to the person you’re visiting. It’s very challenging not to give advice,” said Ardman, 58, a business consultant and poet.
Mark Guterman’s decision to participate in the class was part of his own Jewish journey.
“One of the reasons I wanted to do it is because I’m in a phase of my life now where I want to learn more about Judaism and what it means to me,” said Guterman, 52, who lives in Union City and is a career consultant by day. He has been visiting someone since June.
“There was an instant bond. Mostly we chat and tell stories. He knows as much about me as I do about him. We’re going to start playing backgammon. He’s an avid player and is going to teach me.”
That the participants enjoy the visits doesn’t make them less of a mitzvah.
“There’s a sacred obligation to visit someone who’s ill,” said Ardman, citing a Jewish text that says when one visits someone who’s sick, one removes one-sixtieth of the illness. “It’s more than just a nice thing to do. It has to do with their healing. Healing is not necessarily being cured.”
Lest anyone wonder about the healing power visitors bring, consider the experience that Dan McClosky had this summer when he found himself hospitalized in Sacramento for four weeks after falling off his bike and breaking his pelvis. McClosky, 51, lives in Oakland and is a member of Temple Sinai. Had he been at Kaiser’s Oakland facility, he would have had more visitors than he knew what to do with. But the Kaiser expert he needed to see was in Sacramento. Although his family and a few friends made the 90-minute drive, McClosky was alone much of the time.
“I felt like I was in prison and each day that I had people visiting, it helped. When someone’s coming [to visit] you have something to look forward to even if it’s two days away,” said McClosky, who describes the loneliness while in the hospital as feeling as if the world has forsaken you. “People can feel very alone and when you’re scared, you need the support.”
Fortunately, McClosky wasn’t left alone for long. Rabbi Andrea Fisher from his synagogue called the rabbi at Congregation B’nai Israel in Sacramento, who sent out some e-mails. Soon McClosky started getting calls from Sacramento congregants asking if they could visit him.
“I felt like I belonged to a larger community,” said McClosky, adding that B’nai Israel members brought gifts to him and offered hospitality to his family when they were in Sacramento. But most of all, having people who visited and cared about him made his confinement tolerable and had a positive effect on his healing.
McClosky said the experience was like being the only player on the football field but having a stadium full of people rooting for him.