I’ve never been a believer in angels, at least not of the winged variety. But I’ve come to love the bedtime prayer about the four archangels:

At my right hand is Micha’el (whose name means ‘Who is like God’)

At my left hand is Gavri’el (God is my strength)

Before me is Uriel, (God is my light)

Behind me is Repha’el, (God will bring healing)

And over my head is Shechinat El, the presence of God

I feel safer when I say those words.

Healing is on all our minds. Yesterday at 8.00pm I was about to lead Shiva prayers for a family in mourning when we heard the cheering begin for the NHS. We agreed a pause and went to our doors or windows to join in. I include in my deep appreciation all those in the front lines of health and social work; the staff of every care home; everyone ensuring there’s food for all of us, especially the homeless, the most isolated and refugees; those making protective gowns and visors; also Anthony, the kind and thoughtful sexton at our cemetery, and his staff, for they too take risks to bury our dead with dignity and help our struggling hearts begin to heal. I include the musicians, storytellers, teachers and entertainers who lift our spirits, and, in thankfulness to nature, the birds in the garden who sing to us at dawn. They too are part of Repha’el’s entourage, God’s healing team.

The Torah this week treats of the disease translated as ‘leprosy’; whatever its precise nature, it was contagious and greatly feared. The priests had the critical role: they had to decide who had the symptoms, whether they were progressive or in remission, who needed to be quarantined, who put into isolation outside the camp and who could safely be allowed back home. I used to feel negative about those priests. They were the ones who sent people off into the loneliness beyond. I don’t think that way anymore. 

The priest’s primary role was to officiate in the sanctuary, offering the korbanot, the sacrifices to God. I don’t believe in animal sacrifice and I’m a passionate vegetarian. But that’s not the relevant point. The key term here is korban, from the root meaning ‘near’: the priests are those who bring near. Their aim is to bring the people close to God and the sick back to their families. They represent ministry in its most profound sense of care for the whole person. I’ve met lots of their contemporary incarnations, on hospital wards, in shops, at the front door picking up bags for foodbanks. 

Healing in the Bible isn’t just about bodily wellness, essential as that is, (and the Torah insists that ‘we pay great heed to our health’ and that of those around us.) It’s about relationships. Meaning no. 2, says the classic Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon of Biblical Hebrew, is healing the hurts of the nation. Meaning no. 3 is healing individual distress. ‘Often involving forgiveness,’ the editors note. 

Despite, or rather as an oblique result of, the corona virus, society has begun to travel a path of healing. It’s expressed in a deeper awareness of each other and our neighbours, in the understanding that we are in this together and therefore need to stand together, and that we are all profoundly indebted to the contributions of people we may previously have ignored or taken for granted.

Our world, too, has glimpsed a further road of healing we must travel: the healing of the bond between humankind and nature. Wednesday was the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day. Through Hazon, ‘the Jewish Lab for Sustainability,’ I participated with hundreds of leaders and activists, musicians, children and even dancing baby goats in a great worldwide call to heed and heal the earth. There’s a new humility, a deeper appreciation that the trees, fields, even insects are our healers and that we can’t live without their ministrations.

Malachi prophesied that one future day the dawn will be lit by the sun of righteousness with healing on its wings. We all have power to bring that day a little bit nearer. May we use it, and may God’s healing surround us and protect us.

I wish you health and strength of spirit. I speak for of us all in expressing my utter gratitude to everyone from ambulance teams, nurses and doctors to shop and delivery personnel who are working selflessly and unstintingly through cruel and weary hours to keep us safe. Thank you!

In novel times, old words have new meanings, strike the heart in different ways. In the Bible, a Korban Tzibbur is the sacrifice bought from communal funds and offered on behalf of the entire community. Sheep, oxen, flour, wine, oil: we read all about it in the Torah this week.

But that’s not what the words mean to me now. Next to me are pictures of two doctors who died from Covid 19 as they carried out their duties. One of them, Dr Ala Saadu, voluntarily returned from retirement to help. There are sacrifices in our communities. I’m speaking with people who’ve lost someone they’ve loved all their lives – ‘Our family can’t even hug each other as we grieve’. When the grip of this virus wanes, every community, every tzibbur, will have its korban and there will be sorrow as well as relief in the hearts of all who survive.

But even this, frightening and humbling, is not the most powerful, magnetic meaning the words korban tzibbur hold for me now. They speak to me first and foremost of everyone who mekarev, brings themselves forward, and makriv atsmo, offers their service on behalf of the community. We witness such korban tzibbur, such public service, everywhere: it’s like that here, in Israel, Italy, Spain, in every country across the world silenced by the coronavirus.

Except that we are not silenced. We hear an appeal for drivers to help with deliveries by a woman who’s turned over her commercial kitchens to supplying meals to workers for the National Health Service. Here we learn of people collecting food in every neighbourhood, for foodbanks, for refugees, for people who’ve become almost invisible on our streets but not forgotten from the hearts of these volunteers. Here are teenagers, students, on bike, on foot, collecting prescriptions, delivering medicines, leaving shopping on doorsteps. Here are people, vulnerable themselves, with a list of others to call: ‘Are you OK? What do you need?’

Around us, travelling to work in those almost empty busses, are hundreds of thousands of medical and frontline staff, working double-shifts, exhausted, determined.

That’s what Korban Tzibbur, sacrifice on behalf of the community, is these days.

The Torah calls such offerings olah, a ‘going up’. Those who make them not only raise themselves up to being the best people they possibly can, but lift up the hopes and hearts of us all with the spirit of a different society and a better humanity, devoted, dedicated, appreciative, aware of how deeply we need each other.

The Torah tells us that these sacrifices lasted kol halaylah, ‘all night until morning’. It’s not only that they sustain us and keep us strong through the slow and lonely hours of darkness. It’s more than that, Rebbe Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl explains: they themselves are the morning, they turn our darkness into light.

The Torah explains that kol hayiga bahem yikdash ‘whoever touches them becomes holy;’ that is, whoever gives, helps, supports and connects themselves in any way with such generosity and service becomes holy. Something sacred touches their lives, and ours through them, transforming us, our values and our perspective. We come close to God; we become participants in that tenderness, respect and loving kindness which alone has the power to draw all life together.

Shabbat Shalom and Refuah Shelemah – a Shabbat of peace and healing

I’m holding a guinea pig because it all goes back to ‘The Day the Guinea Pig Talked.’ In that story, a boy and his guinea pig love each other so dearly that they’re granted permission to talk, but merely for a few seconds while the clock strikes midnight. They only have time to say: ‘I love you.’

We’re acutely aware of how alone we are, cut off from many we love. If a relative or friend is in hospital, we’re not allowed to visit. Often one has to wait for a hugely pressured doctor to make a once -a-day call to update us. If it were me or you in hospital, – some of us are more vulnerable than others – we would be deeply alone with our thoughts.

But I believe thought and prayer somehow travel through the ether, and that, as the Talmud says, ‘What comes from the heart reaches the heart’, even if we can only say our words at a distance. There’s Hasidic story that a father and son, knowing they would be separated for a long time, agreed that at certain hours they would both look at the moon and, in that manner, feel connected.

We all know the words from the beautiful 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want. If, at certain hours, we think of that line and others think of it too, then we can know that we are connected in heart-space with those we love. Or we can say the full Psalm with its remarkable verse: ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me,’

Rabbi Chaim reminded me that the Talmud notes special moments, the changing of the guard in ancient times, when prayer is especially effective: 6.00am, 10.00am, 2.00 in the afternoon, 6.00pm, 10.00pm, and if we are awake and anxious in the night, 2.00 in the morning.

For any of us who wishes, we can say the words at those hours, whenever we can. Then, if I or you should be ill and alone, we will know that in our thoughts we’re sharing those words at the same moment, that those we love are with us and that God is with us too. Then, maybe, we’ll feel a little less alone. Here’s a link to a beautiful version of the Psalm. Print it out if you wish; have it near.

Like the boy and the guinea pig, it’s the most important thing we can say to each other: ‘I care about you, I love you, I’m with you in my heart.’