Concern for All
There is a popular saying often quoted in the name of the Mashgiach HaRav Dov Yaffe zt"l: "It's not my job to be concerned for the whole world." However, just as Hashem is concerned for the entire world, so too must we be concerned for everyone.
This does not mean that we must relinquish Torah study. Rather, through our study, good deeds and heartfelt prayer, we can lower to this world bountiful spiritual and material blessing to benefit the entire world.
We find a source for this concept in Chazal. "A person should always visualize himself and the whole world as perfectly balanced, for the good and for the bad. If he performs a mitzvah, he is fortunate in tipping his own balance and that of the whole world favorably."
The question has been raised why we must consider the far removed possibility that the whole world is evenly balanced and that this happens at any one particular moment? Chazal did not mean to say that this is a common occurrence. They wanted a person to believe that whatever he does, every act, can aspire to benefit the entire world.
Some people involved in outreach actually go out to visit homes. We can also perform outreach simply by our concentrated mental effort during Shemoneh Esrei in the blessing of "Hashiveinu... vehachzireinu..." This idea also applies to praying for the ill in "Refoeinu," sincerely, even though we are not qualified to heal them specifically.
Rabbeinu Yehuda Hechossid says that if a person does not pray for a suffering friend, Hashem will afflict him accordingly, that is, not as a punishment but as `measure-for-measure'. And when he falls ill, his prayers may not be effective.
This is why most prayers were formulated in the plural: we must pray in effecting recovery for all of Jewry and not only for ourselves. One who is concerned for others will merit that attribute of measure-for-measure for himself as well.
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