The Mitzvah of Visiting the Sick
8. A sick person is not required to stand even for senior officials and heads of state. If a sick person nevertheless stands to greet someone, one should not say, “Sit down,” since this might be interpreted as “Sit down and remain ill.”
9. It is also permitted to visit the sick on Shabbat. However, instead of the customary forms of prayer, one says: “One should not cry out (pray fervently) on Shabbat—healing will come soon”. Some add: “Great is His mercy, and may they have rest and peace”.
10. If someone visits a sick person but does not pray for them, according to some opinions, they have not fulfilled the mitzvah of visiting the sick as required by halachah.
**** When the Mir Yeshiva relocated to Shanghai, one of its students became seriously ill. The doctors who examined him said that his condition was hopeless and that nothing could be done to help him. They did not expect the young man to survive. The students told their spiritual mentor, Rav Yechezkel Levenstein, about this. Upon hearing about the illness, the rav opened Tractate Shabbat and began reading aloud: “A man lies near death, and nine hundred and ninety-nine accusing angels stand over him, while only one angel defends him. He can be saved, as it says (Job, 33): ‘If there is over him one angel out of a thousand who speaks well of him.’”
After reading this passage, Rav Levenstein opened the aron kodesh containing the Torah scrolls and, with tears in his eyes, cried out so forcefully that everyone present shuddered: “Master of the world, this young man left his warm family home in Germany and went to the Mir Yeshiva before the war began in order to study Torah. Can it be that among thousands of angels, he does not have even one angel to defend him?!” Then he began reciting Psalms with his students. Immediately after their prayers, the young man’s condition improved significantly. He gradually recovered and returned to his studies.