The Way of Chesed
Transcript
Tzedakah is the gift of money or its equivalent. But sometimes that is not what we most need. We can suffer emotional as well as physical poverty. We can be depressed, lonely, close to despair. We may need company or comfort, encouragement or support. These too are human needs, no less real for being untranslatable into the language of politics or economics.
That is what chesed is about: emotional support, ‘loving-kindness’, love as compassion. It is what we mean when we speak of God in Psalm 147 as one who ‘heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds’. It includes hospitality to the lonely, visiting the sick, comforting the bereaved, raising the spirits of the depressed, helping people through crises in their lives, and making those at the margins feel part of the community.
It is tzedakah’s other side. Tzedakah is done with material goods, chesed with psychological ones: time and care. Tzedakah is practical support, chesed is emotional support. Tzedakah is a gift of resources, chesed a gift of the person. Even those who lack the means to give tzedakah can still give chesed. Tzedakah rights wrongs; chesed humanizes fate.
Abraham and Sarah were chosen because of their chesed to others. Ruth became the ancestress of Israel’s kings because of her chesed to Naomi. At the heart of the Judaic vision is the dream of a society based on chesed: society with a human face, not one dominated by the competition for wealth or power. Chesed is the mark of a people joined by covenant. Covenant creates society-as-extended-family; it means seeing strangers as if they were our long-lost brothers or sisters. A community based on chesed is a place of grace, where everyone feels honoured and everyone is at home.
Questions for my journey…
1. How does this teaching apply to me?
2. How can I act on it to become a better person?
3. How can this help me to lead a more meaningful and fulfilled life?