Mi Shebeirach

Reform Jews abolished this practice in the 1800s as their conception of healing shifted to be more based in science, but the devastation of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s saw a re-emergence in gay and lesbian synagogues.

Many congregations maintain "Mi Shebeirach lists" of those to pray for, and it is common for Jews to have themselves added to them in anticipation of a medical procedure; the prayer is likewise widely used in Jewish hospital chaplaincy.

Friedman and Setel's version and others like it, born of a time when HIV was almost always fatal, emphasize spiritual renewal rather than just physical rehabilitation, a distinction stressed in turn by liberal Jewish scholars.

There are Misheberach blessings for everyone in the community, but slanderers, gossips, and schlemiels are excluded.Some Mi Shebeirach prayers are used for life events, including birth (for the mother), bar or bat mitzvah, brit milah (circumcision), or conversion or return from apostasy.

[28] Occasional Mi Shebeirach prayers include those for the Ten Days of Penitence, the Fast of Behav, and Kol Nidre (for Jerusalem).

[33] Some congregations recite a Mi Shebeirach for all olim collectively, a tradition dating at least to Rabbi Eliyahu Menachem in 13th century London.

[38] Influenced by German ideals, early Reform Jews in the United States saw healing as a matter for private, rather than communal prayer.

[40] The Union Prayer Book, published in 1895 and last revised in 1940, lacked any Mi Shebeirach for healing, rather limiting itself to a single line praying to "comfort the sorrowing and cheer the silent sufferers".

[43] As there was at the time no effective treatment for HIV/AIDS, and Jewish tradition says that prayers should not be in vain (tefilat shav), Sha'ar Zahav's version emphasized spiritual healing as well as physical.

[44] Around the same time, Rabbi Margaret Wenig, a gay rights activist, began including a Mi Shebeirach in services with her elderly congregation in New York City, although not framed just as a prayer for healing.

Like the Sha'ar Zahav Mi Shebeirach, Friedman and Setel's version emphasized spiritual healing in the face of a disease which most at the time were unlikely to survive.

[49] Using a mix of Hebrew and English, a trend begun by Friedman in the 1970s,[50] the two chose to include the Jewish matriarchs as well as the patriarchs to "express the empowerment of those reciting and hearing the prayer".

[57] While refuah in Hebrew refers to both healing and curing, the contemporary American Jewish context emphasizes the distinction between the two concepts, with the Mi Shebeirach a prayer of the former rather than the latter.

[58] Nonetheless, Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler critiques the Mi Shebeirach as inapplicable to chronic illness and proposes a different prayer for such cases.

[61] Drinkwater views the modern Mi Shebeirach for healing as providing a "fundamentally queer insight" and frames it as part of a transformation in Judaism away from "narratives of wholeness, purity, and perfection".

[62] The Mi Shebeirach of healing was added to the Reform siddur Mishkan T'filah in 2007,[62] comprising a three-sentence blessing in Hebrew and English praying for a "complete renewal of body and spirit" for those who are ill, and the lyrics to Friedman and Setel's version.

[74] As Friedman lay dying of pneumonia in 2011 after two decades of chronic illness,[75] many North American congregations sang her and Setel's "Mi Shebeirach".

[76] Setel wrote in The Jewish Daily Forward that, while people's Mi Shebeirach prayers for Friedman "did not prevent Debbie's death, ... neither were they offered in vain".

[77] mi shebberach avoteinu avraham yitzchak veya'akov hu yevarech et-kol-hakkahal hakkadosh hazzeh im kol-kehillot hakkodesh.

venomar amen:mi shebberach avoteinu, avraham yitzchak veya'akov, mosheh ve'aharon, david ushelomoh, hu yevarech et ha'ishah hayyoledet ___ ve'et bittah shennoledah lah; veyikkare shemah beyisra'el ___ veyizku aviha ve'immah legaddelah lechuppah ulema'asim tovim; venomar amen.mi shebberach avoteinu, avraham yitzchak veya'akov, hu yevarech et she'aletah lichvod hammakom, velichvod hattorah ___ hakkadosh baruch hu yishmerehu veyatzilehu mikkol tzarah vetzukah umikkol nega umachalah, veyishlach berachah vehatzlachah bechol ma'aseh yadav im kol yisra'el echav; venomar amen.mi shebberach avoteinu, avraham yitzchak veya'akov, hu yevarech et she'alah lichvod hammakom, velichvod hattorah ___ hakkadosh baruch hu yishmerehu veyatzilehu mikkol tzarah vetzukah umikkol nega umachalah, veyishlach berachah vehatzlachah bechol ma'aseh yadav im kol yisra'el echav; venomar amen.mi shebberach avoteinu, avraham yitzchak veya'akov, mosheh ve'aharon, david ushelomoh, hu yevarech virappe et hacholeh.

hakkadosh baruch hu yimmale rachamim alav lehachalimo ulerappoto, lehachaziko ulehachayoto, veyishlach lo meherah refu'ah shelemah, refu'at hannefesh urefu'at hagguf; venomar amen.mi shebberach avoteinu, avraham yitzchak veya'akov, mosheh ve'aharon, david ushelomoh, hu yevarech virappe et hacholah ___.

hakkadosh baruch hu yimmale rachamim aleiha lehachalimah ulerappotah, lehachazikah ulehachayotah, veyishlach lah meherah refu'ah shelemah, refu'at hannefesh urefu'at hagguf; venomar amen.

Mi Sheiberach prayers
On the right, a cantor sings into a microphone. Standing to his left on the bimah (stage), another man sings along and strums a guitar. Both are wearing tallitot (prayer shawls) atop suits, and the cantor is visibly wearing a kippah (skullcap); the guitarist is positioned such that his kippah is not visible to the camera.
Cantor Mo Glazman and guitarist Saul Kaiserman of Congregation Emanu-El of New York chant Debbie Friedman 's setting of the Mi Shebeirach for healing on Rosh Hashanah AM 5777 (2016 CE).