[Avodah] The Gift of Illness

[Micha Berger]

The Wall Street Journal today (pg A19) quoted the following:
> Tony Snow in The Jewish World Review, 2005:

> The art of being sick is not the same as the art of getting well. Some
> cancer patients recover; some don't. But the ordeal of facing your
> mortality and feeling your frailty sharpens your perspective about life.
> You appreciate little things more ferociously. You grasp the mystical
> power of love. You feel the gravitational pull of faith. And you realize
> you have received a unique gift -- a field of vision others don't have
> about the power of hope and the limits of fear; a firm set of convictions
> about what really matters and what does not. You also feel obliged to
> share these insights -- the most important of which is this: There are
> things far worse than illness -- for instance, soullessness.

I guess the trick is to figure out how to avoid soullessness without the
RBSO needing to provide a wakeup call.

Interestingly, the first quote relevent to health and survival is the
"sam chayim" --
    Netzor lechonekha meira
    usefasekha medabeir mirma.
    Sur meira
    va'asei to
    baqeish shalom
    verodfeihu.

But now I was left with the dilemma: What exactly does not speaking ill
or duplicitously (which the Gra in Even Sheleima identifies with
thinking ill but not expressing it), avoiding evil, and asking and 
pursuing peace lead to an appreciation of the power of hope/bitachon and
the limits of fear?

Or can someone find a more appropriate pasuq?
Or maybe someone thinks Mr Snow's description isn't a primary facet of
what one can learn from illness?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
micha at aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org   Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      It is two who look in the same direction.