This is an extract from Sh. Leibovitsh ‘A krankn a refue’ – healing for the sick – in the Tomashov Lubelski Yizker Bukh (1965.) Leibovitz describes the process of ‘aynraysn’ – a word which in Yiddish literally means ‘to tear down’ but which was used to describe fervent prayer and lamentation, usually either by a graveside or by the ark holding the torah scrolls in the synagogue. Involving evocative crying and screaming, ‘aynraysn’ was – as in this account – often led by professional women known as  ‘zogerkes’ or ‘klogerkes’. 

When the doctor suggested that the sick person was, God forbid, dying, or when it was something sudden and urgent, like for example, difficulty in childbirth, or a night of crisis with someone severely ill, when the doctor said that if the sick person lived through the night then he still belonged with us, or if someone needed surgery, people went running to ‘aynraysn’. This meant that the closest relatives and friends of the family of the sick person in question, all ran together to the town synagogue, or to other prayer and study houses. Usually this was done in between the afternoon and evening prayers, or first thing, during the morning prayers. 

The women came into the synagogue wailing like a storm. With lamenting, heart-rending voices they went straight to the holy ark. It was like an emergency appeal, they didn’t check if the cantor was in the middle of praying the Amidah, or chanting from the Torah. They just opened the ark. Then the oldest zogerke began her urgent, spirit-waking cries: 

“Reboyne shel oylem! Great master of mercy! Have mercy on a father of five little lambs, or on a mother of six young babies, Reboyne shel oylem! Do not humilitate us! Reboyne shel oylem! Master of the Universe! Open up the gates of mercy!”

Every outcry was accompanied with a stream of tears from the accompanying women. They would wring their hands and cry so woefully that it moved everyone – even the most stone-hearted person – to tears. 

This “aynraysn” had such an unusual energy of spiritual awakening, the strong feeling of “he announces his sorrow to many and many will ask for mercy on him”– the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, that you should announce your sorrows publicly, so that many will ask for mercy on your behalf [Baal Shem Tov, Tazria 3]. The value of this teaching was clear after experiencing an “aynraysn.” Even complete strangers were torn up alongside the sufferers, and the sorrow of the situation was shared by the whole shtetl.

After leaving the shul, a minyan was quickly formed to say the special chapters of psalms that are capable of healing. Often this would be psalm 119, with the verses selected according to the letters of the name of the sick person, or sometimes according to the letters in קרע שטן (tear up Satan). All this depended on who was leading the procession. Hasidic Jews would also bring whisky into the house as a remedy, to drink a lekhaim [to life] and to wish a full recovery to the sick person. It was also a custom to give charity to the poor. For known poor people, this would be in the form of bread and sometimes also the clothing of the sick person, to unknown poor people we would send money.

Cite this source 

Sh. Leibovitsh, ‘A krankn a refue’, TomashoverYizker Bukh, (1965) p.452-453. Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen.