Thesis

FROM CURING TO CRYING: DETERMINING GOD’S ROLE IN HEALING FOR THOSE WITH CHRONIC ILLNESS

For a PDF of my thesis, click here.

Abstract:

This thesis centers chronic illness in order to craft a theology that reflects the unique experience of living with chronic illness. Key Biblical and rabbinic approaches to illness, disability, and healing demonstrate how these concepts have traditionally been presented and discussed in Jewish thought. An investigation of the dichotomies between illness and health and between healing and cure in Biblical, rabbinic, and liturgical texts leads to a discussion of how God has traditionally been presented as both a ‘healer’ and a ‘curer.’ As for disabled people, notions of ‘cure’ are harmful to those with chronic illness, so theological representations of God as ‘curer’ become troubling. Expanded notions of healing come to the fore in the construction of a new image of God for those with chronic illness: the Pastoral God. God as the Pastoral Presence reflects the underlying principles of pastoral care and partners with the chronically ill in the healing process through shared pain and tears.