Adonai, Adonai el rachum v’chanun. Erech Apayim v’rav chesed v’emet. Nose chesed l’alaphim, nose avon, v’ pesa, v’nakeh….
We don’t usually sing this on Shabbat, even if it is a festival. But we know these words. We add them to our daily services every day from Rosh Hodesh Elul through Yom Kippur. It is how G-d taught us to gain atonement.
It is a portion I know well. It was part of my Bat Mitzvah portion and it is part of why I decided to become a rabbi and then I wrote my thesis about it. Some years I feel that I can never find something new to say.
If you listen carefully, you will hear two words that repeat. There are no extra words in the Torah, so when this happens, we know it is there for emphasis or to teach us something. The repetition of Adonai, Adonai, according to the rabbis tells us that G-d loves us before we sin and after we sin.
In another interpretation, we are told that G-d prays. What is that prayer? G-d prays that mercy outweighs justice. Rabbi Zutra bar Tovia, quoting Rav, states that God prays: “May it be My will that My mercy will overcome My anger, and may My mercy prevail over My other attributes, and may I conduct Myself toward My children with the attribute of mercy”. (Berachot 7) Mercy and compassion are extended to a thousand generations and outweigh justice.
That might be because G-d loves us unconditionally. And that is the other word. Chesed. Hard to translate. The former president of Hebrew Union College, when he wrote his thesis concluded that Chesed is not a word that can be translated. The closest is lovingkindness.
According to the dictionary, chesed is “the attribute of grace, benevolence, or compassion, especially (in Kabbalism) as one of the sephiroth.
Hebrew ḥeseḏ ‘grace, lovingkindness’”
It is therefore part of the essential nature of G-d. Part of lovingkindness is compassion. This week I saw two quotes that brought me up short.
Apparently, Elon Musk said, “The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy.” It was said during an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience on February 28, 2025. A meme contrasted this with a quote by Hannah Arndt, “The death of human empathy, is one of the earliest and most telling signs of culture about to fall into barbarism.” Hannah Arndt was a German Jewish political philosopher who escaped Nazi Germany and lived in New York. The CKI book group read a graphic novel/biography about her, “The Three Escapes of Hannah Arndt.”
Empathy: “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another “he has a total lack of empathy for anybody”
For me these quotes were chilling. We are taught that we are supposed to be like G-d, we should walk in all G-d’s ways. So, if G-d is gracious and compassionate, full of lovingkindness, how do we do this?
What is the connection between empathy and compassion. “Compassion combines both empathy and altruism. If empathy is the ability to experience the feelings and pain of another, compassion translates that feeling into action.”
So compassion is about action. We are then back to discussing gemilut chasadim, ACTS of lovingkindness. Earlier today we sang the verse from Pirke Avot, “Al Shlosha devarim, On three things the world stands. On Torah, On worship and on acts of lovingkindness, gemilut chasadim.”
We are told that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, v’ahavta l’reyecha kamocha, ahava being the other word for love. And we are told that what G-d requires of us is “to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with G-d.” (Micah 6:8) The phrase “Love mercy” as we commonly translate it really combines those two words. “V’ahavat chesed.” Perhaps better, “Love lovingkindness.”
This, therefore is what we are commanded to do. To love our neighbors, (That’s why I immediately reached out to First United Methodist to see what we can do in light of the roof that was ripped off the church last night.) To be like G-d, extending lovingkindness and compassion to all by clothing the naked, welcoming our guests, visiting the sick, feeding the hungry and burying the dead. That’s what it means when it talks about walking with G-d.