To visit and comfort the sick and attend to his needs is a major commandment in the Jewish tradition. The Talmud states that visiting a sick person takes away 1/60 of his sickness, while failing to do so may lead to the sick person's death. According to the Midrash, God Himself visited Abraham when the Patriarch was recovering from his circumcision.

According to the rabbis, when in the presence of the sick, one should not sit on a high chair, or on the bed, or above the patient's head. One may ask the sick man what are his requirements and whether he needs financial assistance. In his will, R. Eleazar the Great wrote: “My son, pay careful attention to visiting the sick, because one who visits him lessens his illness. Entreat him to return to his Creator, and pray for him, and then leave. Let not your presence be a burden to him, because he has enough of a burden with his illness. When you go to visit a person who is sick, enter joyfully, because his eyes and heart are directed to those who enter to visit him.” The 12th century Sefer Hasidim has this to say: “If a poor man is sick and a rich man is sick, and people go to visit the rich man in order to show him respect, go you to the poor man, even if the rich man is learned, because there are many people present with him, and no one goes to visit the poor.”

The highly organised Jewish communities of earlier periods contained special Bikkur Cholim societies, whose members visited the sick and attended to their needs.