The First Week: Chesed:
It turns out that translating the word Chesed isn’t so easy. Love, lovingkindness, kindness, abounding in kindness? Dr. Nelson Glueck, the fomer president of Hebrew Union College wrote his PhD thesis on this very word and concluded that we cannot know its meaning fully. Plaut suggests “beyond what humanity deserves.” Perhaps then it is only something that G-d has and that we mere mortals aspire towards. It is nonetheless, central to our understanding of the nature of the Divine.
Brown Driver and Briggs, the best Biblical Hebrew dictionary lists it as goodness, kindness and, specifically when referring to God, as kindness or lovingkindness. They point out that it is frequently grouped with other attributes, particularly emet, or with the idea that God’s lovingkindness is abundant, as in rav chesed. Onkelos points out that there is an implied “doing” or “making” with chesed that is explicit in the combination of nosei chesed. So this is an active word.
The Stone Chumash explains that God is kind even to those who lack personal merits. Also, if one’s personal behavior is evenly balanced between virtue and sin, God tips the scales of judgment toward the good.
It is different from Ahavah, love, which is used more in relationships, between people or between people and G-d. This is the word for commitment and connection. Ahava is a love of the will and that it is more profound than just fleeting romantic feelings. It is a desire which leads a person to make a decision to join their life to another forever. It is what makes things last. It is the feeling that Isaac had when he took Rebecca to his mother’s tent and was comforted. The Bible simply and for the first time says that “Isaac loved Rebecca.”The lovers in the Song of Songs state that Ahava is as strong as death, that many rivers cannot quench Ahava (Song of Songs 8:7).
It is different from Raya which could be translated as the noun for friendship. Having raya for someone means being a companion or someone you share things with. Raya means you share ideas, experiences, hopes and dreams. It is in the phrase, “Love your neighbor, your companion, your friend as yourself.”(Lev 19)
It is different from Dod, like, Dodi li, I am my beloved and my beloved is mine. I think it probably encompasses all three as an active emotion and act of compassion, lovingkindness and that is what makes it so profound and so difficult to translate.
Chesed is the preview of G-d. The word appears 245 times in the Bible, about two thirds of them refer to G-d’s character and actions. It is G-d who is the Master of Chesed. Creating the world was an act of Chesed and the Psalms remind us, “The world is built with chesed” (89:3).
Growing up in Grand Rapids, I was consistently told that the God of the New Testament is the God of Love, active, present tense and the God of the Old Testament, what I would prefer to call the Hebrew Bible or the Hebrew Scriptures is an old, angry, vengeful, hateful G-d. But given what I learned about the 13 Attributes of G-d and all the ways G-d can be loving—and is, exhibiting chesed to the 1000th generation, I know that this is my mission, to make people aware that they can be loved and are worthy of that deep, unconditional love that G-d offers.
Simon Jacobson says it this way: “Love is the single most powerful and necessary component in life. Love is the origin and foundation of all human interactions. It is both giving and receiving. It allows us to reach above and beyond ourselves. To experience another person and to allow that person to experience us. It is the tool by which we learn to experience the highest reality – G‑d. In a single word: love is transcendence.”
In Moses Cordovero’s cabalistic treatise, Tomer Devorah, the Palm Tree of Deborah, the following are actions undertaken in imitation of the qualities of Chesed:
- love God so completely that one will never forsake His service for any reason
- provide a child with all the necessities of his sustenance and love the child
- circumcise a child
- visiting and healing the sick
- giving charity to the poor
- offering hospitality to strangers
- attending to the dead
- bringing a bride to the chuppah marriage ceremony
- making peace between a man and his fellow
We see this in the Talmud, when we are told “These are the obligations without measure whose reward too is without measure:
“These are the obligations without measure, whose reward, too, is without measure:
- To honor father and mother; to perform acts of love and kindness;
- to attend the house of study daily;
- to welcome the stranger;
- to visit the sick;
- to rejoice with bride and groom;
- to console the bereaved;
- to pray with sincerity,
- to make peace when there is strife.
- V’talmud torah k’neged kulam… and the study of Torah is equal to them all, because it leads to them all.”
It is one of my favorite readings in the Shabbat morning liturgy. Linking it to these actions being acts of chesed only strengthens it for me. This is what being a holy community, a kehila kedosha is all about.
It becomes a blueprint of how we should act with chesed, by imitating G-d as it teaches in the Talmud. What is the meaning of the verse “You shall walk after the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 13:5)? Is it possible for a human being to walk after the Shechinah (God’s presence), for has it not been said, “For the Lord your God is a devouring fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24)? But the verse means to walk after the attributes of the Holy One, Blessed is He. As God clothes the naked, for it is written, “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife coats of skin and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21), so should you clothe the naked. The Holy One, Blessed is He, visits the sick, for it is written, “And the Lord appeared to him (Abraham, while he was recovering from circumcision), by the oaks of Mamre” (Genesis 18:1), so should you also visit the sick. The Holy One, Blessed is He, comforts mourners, for it is written, “And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed Isaac, his son” (Genesis 25:11), so should you comfort mourners. The Holy One, Blessed is He, buries the dead, for it is written, “And He buried Moses in the valley” (Deuteronomy 34:6), so should you also bury the dead. (Sotah 14)
So now that we know a lot about Chesed how do we think about it for the week?
Ellen Lippmann in her reflection on Race and Chesed says this…
The Torah reminds us over and over to remember that we were slaves in Egypt and must forever after be kind to those who are strangers in our time and place. Here and now the tendency is to fear and reject has eager advocates, and the need for Hesed—for that loving kindness that can only be called Divine—grows. ..For white Ashkenazi Jews like me in America in 2016, Hesed could act like this, reaching out a hand when needed, taking care to avoid shaming, becoming an ally without being asked.
Simon Jacobson says,
“Examine the love aspect of love. The expression of love and its level of intensity. Everyone has the capacity to love in their hearts. The question is if and how we actualize and express it. Ask yourself:
What is my capacity to love another person? Do I have problems with giving? Am I stingy or selfish? Is it difficult for me to let someone else into my life? Do I have room for someone else? Do I allow room for someone else? Am I afraid of my vulnerability, of opening up and getting hurt? How do I express love? Am I able to communicate my true feelings? Do I withhold expressing love out of fear of reaction? Or on the contrary: I often express too much too early. Do others misunderstand my intentions?
Whom do I love? Do I only love those that I relate to and who relate to me? Do I have the capacity to love a stranger; to lend a helping hand to someone I don’t know? Do I express love only when it’s comfortable?
Why do I have problems with love and what can I do about it? Does my love include the other six aspects of chesed, without which love will be distorted and unable to be truly realized.”
The point of all of this is to create an awareness of how chesed comes from G-d and how we, in turn, use it in our daily lives. See if you can spot acts of hesed this week—either of your own or of others. Start to make your acts of chesed “active.” As Moranis points out “Without action, chesed is a theoretical notion. It’s like a picture of flowers, minus the scent and feel and depth.” When we begin to practice chesed and to be aware of it, then we receive more chesed as gifts of kindness, bestowed on other and registered in ourselves.
It is like the discussion early in the session about chesed shel emet, burying the dead, is an act of kindness with no hope that the person we are burying will ever repay it. It is, if you will, a final act of paying it forward.
We ended our session with a plea for balance as we sang Al Shlosha Devarim, On three things the world stands, on Torah, on service, on acts of love and kindness.
May it be so as we continue our journey to Sinai.