Rabbi Akiva visits a sick student. He notices that his living conditions are not good. He cleans the floor and tidies up the room. The healthier surrounding helps the student recover more quickly.
The student thanks him profusely, saying that the visit and action gives him the incentive to get better. Rabbi Akiva starts giving talks to his students to make sure to visit the sick.
Years later, Rav Dimi expounds on this by saying that one should not ignore a sick person. Go visit and show the invalid that you are praying on his behalf. Otherwise, by ignoring the person, it is as if you are sending a message to Hashem that the sick one is insignificant and does not deserve kindness. [Nedarim 40s]
When Rava is laid up with an ailment he does not want anyone to know about it on the first day as the mazal (fortune) for a person is not good at this point. Once he is into the second day of illness, he makes sure his assistants publicize his misfortune in order to encourage others to visit him and fulfill the mitzvah of visiting and honoring the sick.
Rabbi Chiyah bar Abba becomes ill and Rabbi Yochanan visits him. He asks Rabbi Chiyah if he is content with receiving Yesorim. They are the afflictions that beset as punishment in this world as opposed to receiving harsher punishment in the World To Come. It can be a stomach ache, a broken arm, damage to property- anything that will give one heartache, pain and/or suffering.
Rabbi Chiyah replies that he is not happy because it prevents him from studying Torah. Rabbi Yochanan takes his hand and Rabbi Chiyah recovers. Rabbi Chiyah reciprocates a visit when Rabbi Yochanan takes sick. The Gemara asks that if Rabbi Yochanan is able to seemingly cure others why cannot he cure himself? The answer given is that there is a common saying that a “prisoner” cannot get free from his detention by himself.
Rabbi Elazar also becomes sick and Rabbi Yochanan visits him as well. The house is dark, Rabbi Yochanan uncovers his arm and the room lights up from the radiance that shines from his skin. (On Bava Metzia 84b, Rabbi Yochanan says that he is from the last of those with such a shine since the destruction of the Temple.)
Rabbi Yochanan notices that Rabbi Elazar is crying. He tells him not to cry if it is because he is not able to learn Torah. Rabbi Elazar’s intentions are pure and for the sake of Heaven. If Rabbi Elazar is crying because of a lack of money- it is fruitless, because not everyone inherits two worlds of wealth- (Torah and Money). If Rabbi Elazar is crying because he lost children, Rabbi Yochanan lost ten sons and he shows Rabbi Elazar the tooth fragment he saved from the last one.
Chidushe Goenim: Rabbeinu Shereirah and Rabbeinu Hai indicate that Rabbi Yochanan buries ten sons during his lifetime. The last one falls into a hot cauldron and is boiled alive. The only parts remaining are bone fragments. A bone fragment from his son’s finger (Rabbeinu Chananel– tooth) is no more than the size of a barley seed. Since it is so small, there is no concern of becoming ritually impure by coming in contact with it.
Nissim Gaon, sefer Hamiftach L’Rabbeinu: Rabbi Yochanan has another son named Masnah and he sends him to Bavel to learn from Shmuel.
Rabbi Elazar replies that it is for none of these reasons that he cries. He says, “I cry because your beauty will eventually end up rotting in the ground when you die.” Rabbi Yochanan asks him if he, too, believes in yesorim. Rabbi Elazar answers that he does not desire them nor the value of their reward. Rabbi Yochanan takes his hand and revives him from his sickness. (Berachos 5B)
Iyun Yaakov suggests that Rabbi Yochanan puts out his hand and asks both Rabbi Chiyah and Rabbi Elazar to give him their hand- meaning to pass over money to him to give to Tzedakah (charity) on their behalf. Giving charity can be an antidote to negative decrees against the soul.
It should also be noted that Rabbi Yochanan is quoted on both Chulin 7b and Sanhedrin 67b that keshafim – those who practice black magic – have the ability to overrule Heavenly Court decrees. [He says that the word is an acronym meaning “defying a Heavenly decree”] The Gemara in Chulin responds that the majority of Rabbis concur that those who have abundant merit are exempt from others wishing them harm.