The Mitzvah of Visiting the Sick
2. Close relatives and friends should visit the patient on the very day his condition worsens, while everyone else comes three days later. If the patient's condition deteriorates sharply, the mitzvah to visit him (immediately) applies to everyone.
3. The mitzvah is fulfilled every time you visit the patient, even if you do so several times a day. However, you should be considerate and take care not to disturb the patient or cause him any discomfort.
4. In the case of a contagious illness, the mitzvah applies only to those whom the patient needs. Here, too, everything depends on the degree of risk of infection. If there is a direct threat to life, there is no obligation to visit the patient.
5. One should not visit an enemy, lest he think the visitor is pleased with his plight.
6. When visiting the patient, it is very important to sit beside him and talk with him. If, for some reason, the patient is lying on the ground (on the floor), one should not sit beside him on a chair or any other raised object during the visit. The Sages explain that since the Shechinah (Divine Presence) is at the patient's head, one must behave in a special way and not “rise above” it.
7. If a person cannot visit the patient himself, then, as a last resort, he should send someone else to visit him, or at least write to him and call him.
****When the famous Rebbe of Aleksander (author of “Yismach Yisrael”) fell ill, Rabbi Avraham of Sochatchov (author of “Avnei Nezer”) sent his son to visit him. He also asked his son to say that he was carrying out his father's request. After this visit, the Rebbe of Aleksander said: “It is written that the Almighty Himself visits the sick, which means that one should fulfill the mitzvah personally, rather than through a third party. But surely Rabbi Avraham is no longer young and is already very weak, so he was unable to come to me himself.”
****In the city of Brisk lived a Jew who paid particular attention to the mitzvah of visiting the sick. The only problem was that he stayed with the patient too long. One day, the rabbi of Brisk, Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, heard about this kindhearted Jew. He summoned him and said: “The Sages taught us that when we visit the sick, we ‘take away’ 1/60 of their illness. Now let us work out how much free time a patient would need for sixty people to visit him in a day. Like any healthy person, he needs to sleep and eat, wash and rest… That leaves him with very little time for each visit.”