The prayer for healing is, at first glance, shrouded in mystery. The idea of praying for healing itself makes perfect sense. Who doesn’t pray for healing? When someone is sick, or someone’s relative is sick, it may be the time when our prayers are most visceral and most sincere.
The problem with this prayer in the Amidah is its placement. As pointed out elsewhere, the seventh Amidah blessing, Redemption, is the beginning of an extensive outline of national rebirth. We pray for a good year in Israel, for a return of exiles, for the establishment of courts, etc., all the way up to the establishment of a King from the House of David.
But mit in drinnen, right after the prayer for redemption, we have the prayer for healing, which at first glance seems to be immensely personal rather than national.
Why?
A close look at the opening lines of the prayer will put us on the right track. “Heal us Lord, and we will be healed. Save us, and we will be saved.” This is a variant on the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who had initially spoken in the singular, “Heal me Lord, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved.” What we don’t know about Jeremiah is whether he was ever physically ill. What we do know is that he was the great prophet of catastrophe, witness to the destruction of the First Temple, author of the Book of Lamentations. That book is filled with images of pain and sickness. With reference to the vast scope of the destruction, and the endless victims, Jeremiah writes: “Because of this our hearts are sick. Because of these our eyes are dimmed: Because of Mt. Zion, which lies desolate.”
Jeremiah may not have been physically sick. But he was certainly heartsick. So when he was praying for healing it was not for his personal physical ailment, but for the “sickness” the people of Israel experienced in exile. It was, in a word, “refuat hanefesh”—the healing of the soul, rather than “refuat haguf”—the healing of the body over which Jeremiah cried his eyes out. And to this day, in our mi sheberach for healing, we ask for “refuat hanefesh urfuat haguf.” In that order. [Please note: translations very often translate the phrase as “body and soul,” (thereby reversing the order), possibly under the influence of Billie Holiday’s beautiful version of the song Body and Soul.]
In short; redemption will be a time of national healing, a theme which fits perfectly within the Amidah context. This is underscored by the very placement of the prayer as number 8. “Who knows eight? I know eight. Eight are the days till the circumcision.” At the circumcision on the eighth day, we bring our young men into the covenant of Abraham. And what, exactly, is the covenant of Abraham? G-d’s promise that “I assign the land you sojourn in to you and your offspring to come, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting holding. I will be their G-d.”
Seen in this light, the eighth blessing for healing is not only consistent with the theme of redemption—it is essential to it.