Our next guest blogger is Linda Blatchford. Linda shows up almost every Saturday and enjoys helping to lead the davenning (prayer service). She is also a very talented jewelry designer.

God is gracious, compassionate, and forgiving – these are three of the thirteen attributes.

Gracious is defined in the dictionary as “marked by kindness and courtesy.” Thinking about a few Torah readings, it occurs to me that maybe G-d is not always kind. Is it kind of G-d to ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Is it kind of G-d to prevent Moses from entering the holy land?  Yet, G-d has reasons for these actions and by studying the texts with our rabbis, we learn about them.

As G-d demonstrates by these actions, perhaps one cannot be gracious and compassionate all the time.  We are human after all and not perfect nor do we need to be (in my opinion). Each of us draws upon the sparks of G-d within us to help others, to do the next right thing, a mitzvah. I am sure that G-d wants us to be compassionate toward other people and help them in any way we can.  Buying a meal, driving someone to a doctor’s appointment, or just listening to a person who needs to talk are all examples of gracious and compassionate things we can do. Sometimes, the little things we can do speak volumes and mean the most.

In the month of Elul, before Rosh HaShanah, we are to approach our friends and family to ask their forgiveness for any wrongs we have done against them in the past year. Why? It is good to start the Jewish New Year with a clean state. It is a form of repentance toward other people, and it’s important to do this before turning to G-d to ask for His forgiveness during the High Holidays.

Forgiving others adds other elements to the process. We may tend to forgive, but not forget. If we emulate G-d by forgiving and forgetting, we are honoring G-d, and rising to a higher level of love, compassion and kindness for others and for ourselves by unburdening ourselves of judgments and past wrongdoings and live in the present, here and now.

So, I hope we all start 5774 with these qualities.

Linda asks an important question. Is God always kind and compassionate? I think the answer would appear to be no. Her examples, Asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Moses not being able to see the promised land are good ones. And what about Job, his faithful servant, who G-d allows to be tested? But there are more recent examples. How could we ever think the Holocaust was kind and compassionate? It has always interested me that the Thirteen Attributes do not say that God is all powerful, all knowing, all good. No, instead, we are told that G-d is kind, compassionate, slow to anger, forgiving of sin. I tend to agree that God can be kind and compassionate. But God gave us humans free choice. When we make bad decisions, God can’t step in and make it right or necessarily be kind and compassionate. Linda is right when she says that we must go to people before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and ask their forgiveness. I think, the deep meaning of what Linda is teaching us is that if we are to emulate G-d by being kind, compassionate, forgiving, then we also have to be forgiving of G-d when it appears that G-d is not being kind and compassionate. Wow! Can we do that? Can I do that?