And Abraham was old, advanced in days, and the Lord had blessed Abraham with everything. (Bereishit - Genesis 24-1)
With tremendous joy we heard the good news that this past Shabbos Kodesh Parashat Vayera, hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world participated in the annual worldwide "Shabbat Project", in which distant Jews unite together to keep one Shabbat a year. (This also serves as a catalyst for many of them to rise up to keep Shabbat all year round, as well as the other Torah Commandments).
This surely makes a great impression in heaven, because thanks to the observance of the Shabbos, one receives all the blessings and supreme protection from all trouble, as explained in the Holy Zohar Parshas Yetro that all spiritual and material blessings depend on the Shabbos.
Keeping Shabbos hastens healing, as explained in Tractate Shabbos (12) "In the merit of Shabbos healing hastens to come." Although the sages stated (Tractate Avoda Zara 55) that when it is decreed that a person receive suffering it is also decreed that the pain will not leave him until a certain day, nevertheless, thanks to keeping Shabbos, God will hurry to bring healing.
The reason for this can be explained based upon a story told about the late Rabbi Akiva Eiger zt"l: He once went to visit a sick member of the community, and saw that he was suffering from a very serious illness. He sent for the doctor of the king's court to come and try to cure the patient. The Royal Physician said that there was no cure for this. Rabbi Akiva Eiger asked him: "If one of the royal family had this disease, would you even then say that there is no cure?"
The doctor replied: "Indeed, one of the royal family once contracted this disease, and since I knew the king had huge resources, I told them that there was one remedy that was very difficult to obtain, and that was the flesh of a bird species found only in a terrible desert in a distant land. The King sent a huge force to the desert, and after much effort they managed to capture one such bird. They cooked it for the patient who ate it and was cured. But since a simple human being cannot attain such a bird, that's why I said now that there is no cure."
Rabbi Akiva Eiger returned to his house and entered his room, and immediately offered a prayer: "Our Father in heaven! You are the King of kings, and the children of Israel are your sons, and now one of your sons needs a bird from the distant desert. Please send us such a bird, like the human king did for his son". Some time passed, and suddenly such a bird fluttered its wings on the window of Rabbi Akiva Eiger's house. He immediately ordered it to be caught and fed to the patient, and the patient was cured.
From this it will be understood why Sabbath observance brings healing, because through Shabbos we show that we are sons of our heavenly Father, who gave us the Sabbath which is like the scepter of the King which he gives only for his sons. And thanks to keeping Shabbos, God is acting back to us as the father of a sick son.
In the merit of Shabbos God creates new medicines, as I heard from the late Skulen Rebbe in the name of his father the author of Noam Eliezer: In the davening we say that Hashem is the "creator of remedies" - in the present tense - when it seems that the past tense should have used, "created remedies"? In truth Hashem is constantly creating new remedies in every generation to heal the new illnesses that He creates. He is the one who gives the medical world the power of thought and action to invent new medicine.
Sometimes God arranges that they will not have to seek healing from afar, they will be saved from the disease even by the same thing that brought the disease. The Midrash says (parshat Mezorah 18): "A human being strikes with a scalpel and heals with a bandage, Hashem on the other hand with what he strikes he uses it to heal." An example of this is found in the Gemara (Yoma 84), that one who is bitten by a mad dog, should be fed from that dog's liver and this will heal him. This is also the basis of the idea of Vaccination.
In this regard, I heard from my mother, the Rebbetzin a.h., who remembered from her childhood that her grandmother, the wife of Rabbi Menachem Mendil Rokach of Linsk, had fallen ill, and the doctor said that in order to keep her alive she had to take certain medications. She obeyed the doctor and took the medicine, and after a few days she became paralyzed. After a while, just as she was given another dose of that same medicine again, she suddenly felt that she had been cured of the paralysis, and she rose from bed in good health. Everyone saw that that all healing is in the hands of Hashem.
This can be interpreted here: "And Abraham was old, advanced in days, and the Lord had blessed Abraham with everything. "And Abraham was old, advanced in days" - he came with the sacred power of the known holy days, for they are all the Sabbaths he kept during his life, and thanks to this "and God blessed Abraham in all" - our Father in heaven blessed him with all kinds of blessings.
And Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai (Tractate Baba Basra 16:) said of this verse, that the greatest blessing Avrohom received was that a precious stone hung from his neck and every sick person would look at the stone and be healed. Thanks to the observance of Shabbos Kodesh he continued for himself and others the power of complete and speedy healing, in an easy way, it was enough just to look at a stone, and immediately they were healed.
May it be the Will of Hashem in our time as well, that thanks to the strengthening of Sabbath observance, there will be a hastening of healing in the easiest and best manner possible.
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