Tefillah - 073 The Source of All Sickness

Sicknesses Come From A Void

In the blessing of רפאינו we say כי תהלתינו אתה ,”For You are our praise.”

What do these words have to do with our prayer to be healed from illness?

When Hashem created the world, He cleared a space, a chalal, to make the world. The word chalal comes from the word chilul (mundane); Hashem took away some of His presence, so to speak, in order to allow space for Creation. Any time that Hashem takes away His presence, there is a chalal, a void, which is related to the word choli, sickness. All sickness is essentially a void of Hashem’s presence.

How many sicknesses are there in the world? It seems like there are an endless amount of sicknesses. But there is really only one sickness, from which all sicknesses stem from.

The Chazon Ish writes that Hashem’s existence fills the entire existence. He is present as well in animals, plants and rocks. The fact that Hashem is the Creator is not just another piece of knowledge. It’s not that there is life, and there is also “Avodas Hashem”, just like there we understand that in our life there is Torah, chessed, etc. Rather, life is all about Avodas Hashem; it’s not possible for there to be true life without feeling Hashem’s existence.

Deep down in the hearts of most people, Hashem’s existence is not revealed. People have a void in their heart; there is a sense of emptiness in life that so many people have. Most people in the world feel that there is a hollow void in their life; there is very little “life” that people have on this world. Some people’s lives are like animals, and some people are like plants – others are even worse, and they are like rocks! There is very little real life to be found amongst people. At best, people aspire to go to Gan Eden one day, but when it comes to how to view life, most people are empty.

If we would take the average person in today’s times and place him in the desert, he would feel horribly lonely. If we would put him in a Kolel or if we give him a job, he feels part of society; he’ll feel good only when he gets a smile every here and there from someone. Others feel lonely even though they are surrounded all the time with people.

But if someone lives an inner kind of life, when he views Creation through a truthful lens, he sees how much of a void is going on in the world today, and he realizes that a person has to detach from this world and instead feel alone with Hashem.

Although we live in a world of much Torah and chessed, there is very little of revelation of Hashem’s Presence in the lives of people. Thus, most people are living empty lives; we are surrounded with a horrible void. The Torah is in exile, as our Rabbis wrote; our souls are in exile, and the Shechinah is in exile. The meaning of this is that there is a great void in the world – there is a great lack of sensing Hashem’s presence.

To Feel Lonely On This World

The more a person lives an inner kind of life, he will discover that he doesn’t have that much connection with other people. The reason for this is simple; there are very few people whom he shares a common language with. Sure, he will greet others and smile at them, but only out of derech eretz for others; he finds that he doesn’t connect with most people, because most people are talking a different language, living a superficial kind of life. A person who lives an inner kind of life these days feels lonely, because he doesn’t find others are who speak his inner language.

But there is a deeper reason why an inner person feels lonely on this world: because he feels how this world is like one big void.

For example, a person goes to a wedding and he’s sitting by a table where 10 people are schmoozing for 3-4 hours. How much truth was said at the conversation? How many truthful words were uttered during all this time? Even if they’re talking words of Torah, the words aren’t always truthful, because the words are usually not emanating from a pure place in the soul, and the Torah being discussed at the table resembles the Torah of Doeg and Achitophel, whose entire learning was external and superficial, and not in their hearts. Of course, you should judge people favorably for being like that, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the world still remains mostly empty from truth.

When a person notices the great emptiness on this world, he has the key to searching for a truthful connection with Hashem.

If a person keeps making lots of friends, this really shows that he has an empty kind of life. The more a person lives a truthful kind of life, the more he sees how empty this world is, and he seeks instead to dwell in inner solitude with Hashem. In this generation especially, the giant void of emptiness in in people’s lives have reached an all-time low.

Upon realizing this, a person can come to the conclusion that he needs to spend a life of being alone with Hashem, for he feels lonely in this empty world, and he realizes that only Hashem is His companion in this world. Living like this will help a person connect deeply to Torah and to Hashem.

The Chovos HaLevovos says that one must come to feel alone on this world. A person has to know – and not just to know, but really feel –that Hashem fills the entire world! Most people do not realize this, though, because they are surrounded all the time with family, friends and they are bombarded with life, so they never feel the loneliness they are supposed to feel.

Filling The Void

All of the sicknesses in the world are all because of one thing alone: there is a chalal, a giant void going on, in the world. Choli\sickness can only settle upon a person when there is a chalal in the soul.

We need to let Hashem’s existence fill our own. Thus, when a person asks in Shemoneh Esrei to be healed, the real meaning of this is to ask that Hashem’s existence should fill our entire existence, and then there will be nomore choli\chalal. One has to remove the chalal from his own soul in order to merit healing from Hashem and remove the choli.

Now we can understand why we add on the words כי תהלתינו אתה(“For You are our praise”)after we ask Hashem רפאינו ה' ונרפא “Heal us, Hashem, and then we will be healed…” We are asking Hashem to be healed not just so that we won’t be sick anymore. We want our sickness to be removed so that we will come to really “praise” Him - that we will come to recognize Him more in our life; when we let His existence fill our own, there is no room for sickness.

Separating From Today’s Indulgent Lifestyle

If a person is too connected to this world and to its materialism, it is hard for him to realize the great void that is taking place this world. He is too attached to his good food, so he doesn’t see anything wrong with this, how this is all a giant void of emptiness. When it comes Tu B’Shevat, for example, he wants to eat all the many fruits there are and he convinces himself that he has to make a beracha over fruit of Eretz Yisrael…but it’s really stemming from indulgence in physical desire.

If a person makes sure to separate himself from materialistic desires, from the lifestyle of this world which is so far from the way of Torah, the more he feels how empty this world is, and he will be able to feel secluded and alone with Hashem.

The more a person is materialistic, the more he seeks friendship, because he wants to be connected to this world; he doesn’t want to feel lonely, and in doing so, he runs away from what he is supposed to come to feel on this world. But when a person makes time for deep reflection and he decides that he must disconnect from this world of falsity, he can discover how lonely he really is on this world, and that the only alternative for him on this world is to feel secluded and alone with Hashem.

We must separate from the lifestyle of this world and feel the pure point in our soul in which we can feel totally secluded with Hashem. The more a person recognizes how much of a chalal this world is in, the more he will be able to allow Hashem’s existence to fill the void he feels. A person must first feel the emptiness of this world as a prerequisite to have closeness to Hashem.