The blessing for healing (number 8) follows immediately after the blessing for redemption (number 7). This is not at all a random order. Instead, it reflects a profound theological insight. Throughout the Bible, the number 7 represents the natural order. For example, the 7 days of creation. The number 8 represents the spiritual enhancement of the natural order—for example, the brit milah (circumcision) taking place on the 8th day. So here, the implication is that the redemption is to be followed immediately with healing. And what healing is that? The healing that takes place on the 8th day, that is, the healing that follows after the circumcision.
Why the link between the two? Because the whole point of the brit milah is to enter Jews into the covenant of Abraham, the covenant that promises the Land of Israel to the People of Israel. If redemption were not linked to that covenant, one could imagine other forms of redemption that ignore the Land. In this the rabbis were nothing less than prophetic, for indeed in our own time we have seen multiple examples of other suggested “redemptions.” The political emancipation of the late 18th century, for example, triggered all sorts of expectations of Jewish redemption through citizenship. In the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform of the Reform movement, we read: “We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.” Meanwhile Communism and Bundism offered a different kind of redemption, while criticizing Zionism “as a utopian, reactionary, “petty-bourgeois” movement…[a]t best an unwanted diversion from the class struggle and poletarian revolution.” (Robert Wistrich) All sorts of alternatives were offered as a “home” to the Jews, including Birobidzhan, Siberia, Crimea, Uganda, Argentina, and even Grand Island in the Niagara River (go Bills!). As should be obvious, none of these proposals had the compelling power of the Zionist movement’s call to return to The Land (emphasis on The).
Put another way, solving “the Jewish problem” is not solely finding a way for Jews not to be murdered. “The Jewish problem” won’t be solved until Jews can live a life as Jews, building a Jewish culture, and working to fulfill the promises made to G-d in response to the gift of The Land (again, emphasis on The). Our healing from the Exile will not be complete until we live a covenantal life.