You are my beloved, says G-d. Yet for many of us it is so hard to believe that G-d can love us. That was true for me. As a victim of a violent crime I thought that I wasn’t loveable anymore. That I was somehow “damaged goods.” But then I had an aha moment. The first two attributes are Adonai, Adonai, The Lord, The Lord. But the rabbis teach that there are no extra words in the Torah. Usually this attribute is seen as G-d loving the sinner before the sin and loving the sinner after the sin. What if, it meant that G-d loved me before the attack and after the attack? Was it even possible? It just might be.

Our next blogger is Zahava Raz, the cheerful, welcoming voice of Congregation Kneseth Israel. Her thinking was quite similar. G-d is the G-d of love. Why wouldn’t we want to know this G-d?

After looking at the list of 13 attributes of God, the question came to me, “who wouldn’t want to know this God of Israel, who is so wonderful, so personable, so abundant in goodness and forgiveness, showing compassion to a thousand generations, pardoning sin and full of truth?

It struck me how much this God loves us.  How much He desires us to know Him. Why on earth shouldn’t we run to Him and stay with Him on a daily basis and just get to know Him? This is why the Israelites fell on their faces before Him in worship.  They saw, knew and felt that powerful presence.

Yet we do not come close.  We stray far from Him. We think we cannot enter into a relationship because He is God.  Yet Abraham did, Moses did, David did, and all the prophets did.  We can too.

He must be real to us, we must be like walking Torah’s, full of all those attributes. These attributes should be ingrained in our personalities for peace to come on earth.

Forgiveness needs to be a part of our lives.   If we do not forgive, sickness comes, webecome bitter and harbor grudges.  We should imitate God – we should be slow to anger and showing much compassion towards one another.  And if another injures us, we should pardon them in love.

God is our example.  And He wants to know us as His children . We  should be that close to Him.  And have confidence to come to Him with trust, and not fear.