Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital • St. Peter’s University Hospital • JFK Medical Center • ProCure Proton Therapy Center • Highland Park / Edison, New Jersey
“The mitzvah of Bikur Cholim obligates the community to take care of the worldly concerns of the patient and to promote and to provide essential peace of mind.” – Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De‘ah 335
Bikur Cholim means “visiting the sick.” Bikur Cholim of Raritan Valley, under the guidance of the Vaad Harabonim of Raritan Valley, is an all-volunteer organization founded over 20 years ago. We are based in the Highland Park/Edison community across the Raritan River from New Brunswick, NJ. Our volunteers:
- prepare and deliver kosher home-cooked meals to patients in our local hospitals and to families with illness in the home;
- lend out medical equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers and nebulizers;
- provide transportation to appointments in the hospitals and doctors’ offices;
- visit Jewish patients in the local hospitals and nursing homes, as well as those who are homebound.
We stock kosher food pantries at the hospitals and arrange for shofar blowers, seder plates, megillah readers and lulav and etrog. We also help with referrals for accommodations near the hospitals and with other arrangements needed when there is illness in the home.
Please do not hesitate to call us: 732-572-7181
We are here for you.
At the heart of Bikur Cholim of Raritan Valley are over 250 volunteers.
Our aim is to provide support and comfort to families in need.
If you are in need of our services, call us at (732) 572-7181.
People discover Bikur Cholim unfortunately when they are confronted with challeges … and Bikur Cholim is there always to lend support and to do what needs to be done to help the family and all of the members of the family.
When you go and visit somebody in need, they never forget that. They’ll have eternal gratitude for what you might feel is just a minor effort, but it makes a major difference.
It’s a beautiful thing to see how all the volunteers in town are ready to give and to make whatever we need… It’s a wonderful feeling to see when we deliver the food to the family, the reactions on their faces, the simcha on their faces is something that’s unbelievable.
Sometimes while I’m stocking a locker, somebody walks by and says “Hey, wow, I just want you to know we used it and this was great!”
As one of our children was being born, my wife and I knew that we’d have to spend one Shabbat in the hospital. However all of our needs, we knew ahead of time, were going to be met. The closets were stocked with everything we would need, from food to Siddurim to Shabbat candles. Knowing that we’d have visitors, knowing that whatever we’d need we could call upon Bikkur Cholim to help us out.
Here is an opportunity in our community, across the street maybe, around town, of people who are in need of help because they are incapacitated in some way. This is an opportunity which we can all be part of this great effort of the Bikur Cholim of Raritan Valley and I urge you to please seize the opportunity.