Rabbi Ronnie Cohen

"El na r’fa na la." "O God, pray heal her!" With these words, Moses utters the first actual text of a healing prayer that we find in the Bible.

A little background: The Israelites are in the desert. They have been parked around Mt. Sinai for about a year, receiving the Torah, fashioning golden calves, and generally getting their desert legs. Now that they’re used to the desert, secure in the knowledge that the Egyptians are not coming after them, they become impatient. This impatience manifests itself in an escalating series of rebellions against Moses. The first is a minor complaint about the bland diet, to which God responds by feeding them quail until it comes out their noses. The second is Miriam and Aaron privately scorning Moses’ choice of a wife, and questioning his right to be the sole authority on what God wants. Next, in fairly rapid succession come the very public incidents of the spies who reject the Promised Land in favor of returning to Egypt, and finally the rebellion of Korah challenging both Moses and Aaron in their respective leadership roles. While these final two incidents don’t happen for another couple of weeks (the spies next week, and Korah the week after) in our schedule of Torah reading, I want to focus on the story of Aaron and Miriam, which happens at the very end of this week’s parsha.

After Miriam’s and Aaron’s little tête-à-tête at Moses’ expense, God calls them in on the carpet at the Tent of Meeting, and lays down the law about the nature of Moses’ special relationship with God, which is unlike that of any other prophet. After the visible symbol of God’s manifestation, the Cloud, departs the Tent of Meeting, Miriam is found stricken with leprosy. Aaron turns to Moses, and pleads that Miriam not be punished for the sin "committed in our folly." In response, Moses cries out to God: "El na r’fa na la." "O God, pray heal her!" God’s response is that Miriam should suffer the week as a leper, barred from the camp as any other leper would be, before she is readmitted to the camp, healed.

Now this isn’t the first time in the Bible that someone prays to God to heal someone else from an affliction. Way back in Genesis, Abimelech, the King of Gerar, asks Abraham to pray for healing for him and his court. In the next generation, Isaac prays for Rebecca to heal her barrenness. And Pharaoh several times asked Moses to pray for him in undoing the plagues. But what is different about this incident is that we have the actual words of this short prayer. Five little words: "El na r’fa na la." "O God, pray heal her!"

Of course, even in this short prayer, Rashi, the medieval French Bible commentator, finds needless words. Why, he inquires, does Moses start out addressing God? Why not just say, "Pray heal her!" Rashi’s answer is that this teaches us that one cannot simply make a request of God without a minimum of introductory supplication.

More interesting than Rashi’s comment, however, is the observation that Moses’ prayer doesn’t seem to conform to the formula that we use for someone’s healing: namely, it doesn’t mention the name of the person to be healed. In general, today when we say a mi-she-berach, we mention the name of the person and the person’s mother. The book Itturei Torah, a collection of modern, often Hassidic commentaries on the Torah, brings a story in the name of Rabbi A. Frankel about two famous Hasidic rabbis who happened to run into each other: Rabbi Abraham Mordecai from Gur, and Rabbi Meir Yehiel from Ostrovche. During the course of the conversation, Rabbi Meir Yehiel mentioned his own name, and that of his mother, so that Rabbi Abraham Mordecai could say a healing prayer for him. Rabbi Abraham Mordecai was momentarily taken aback, and finally said that the Talmud teaches (in Berachot 34) that ‘whoever seeks mercy for his friend does not have to mention him by name,’ and as a proof-text, cites Moses’ prayer for Miriam. Rabbi Meir Yehiel answered him, saying that the core of Moses’ request – ‘r’fa na’ (‘pray heal’) is the numeric equivalent of Miriam Yocheved, the name of Miriam and that of her mother (332 for those who want to check it out).

All of the foregoing is by way of introduction to teaching that the practice of saying healing prayers for those who are ill is an ancient tradition within Judaism. We observe this tradition at Beth Am every time the Torah is read, whether in daily Minyan or at Shabbat and Holiday services at our various minyanim. In addition, for the past year, Beth Am has also hosted a monthly healing service of the Jewish Healing and Hospice Center of Los Angeles, led by TBA member Rabbi Carla Howard, its founder and Executive Director. Our next and last healing service of the year is on Monday, June 25, at 7:30 PM. The program of each service always involves some chanting, and some sitting in silence and some discussion. And it always ends with a healing circle. Everyone joins hands singing a healing chant, while people put forth the names of friends and relatives who are in need of healing. After a while, anyone in the circle who feels the need for healing for him- or herself is invited to step into the circle and feel the energy of being enveloped within the healing chant. Having been inside that circle myself, I can attest to the power of that experience. I invite you to come on June 25^th to see for yourself.

Oh, one last thing: the words of the chant are ‘el na r’fa na la.’