The Life You've Always Wanted: Part 5
March 5, 2023Pastor Patrick presented "Kindness" as the next Fruit of the Spirit in our current series, "The Life You've Always Wanted." A video of the message is here. Our Conversation Starter for this week is here.
The word in Biblical Hebrew most commonly translated as kindness is checed (חֵסֵד). It occurs about 247 times in the Old Testament. The root means "to bend, bow, or incline oneself." When the word is used as an attribute of God, it's usually translated as lovingkindness. It suggests divine love in granting mercy to sinners. When used to describe what man does or should do, it's usually "mercy, deal kindly, goodness, good deeds," etc. Psalm 136 repeats as a refrain, "For His lovingkindness endures forever." The Hebrew word also has an element of "covenant loyatly." There is no entirely accurate English word for checed.
See Exodus 34:6, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness." Here, checed is translated as love. The last phrase could have been just as accurate with "kindness and truth." In case you didn't watch or hear Pastor Patrick's message, it includes a most valuable discussion of delivering the truth with kindness.
One of the first occurences (of checed in the OT) is in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 19:19, Lot is speaking to "the men," really God's messengers ("angels"), telling them that "they have shown him (Lot) great kindness by sparing his life." And indeed, God, via the messengers, has shown Lot great kindness. But Lot is still not really seeing it. He says "I'll not make it to the hills, let me go to this other town" (despite the messengers' promise to hold off till he gets there). As Prager points out, those who want to see God and his will can see it, those that don't, won't. Lot did end up being saved in the "little place" (Genesis 19:20) nearby which became known as Zoar which means "small place."
The first occurence where checed is sometimes translated as lovingkindness is in Genesis 24:12. Here, Abraham's servant is on his mission to find a wife for Abraham's son, Isaac, and he's praying to God that he be successful and that God show lovingkindess to his master, Abraham. Some translations use the word gracious, "deal graciously with my master, Abraham." Intersting side note: this is the first petitionary prayer in the Torah. Also pointed out by Prager, this shows that anyone can talk to God and invite Him into their life, even a "lowly" servant. And this petitionary prayer is ultimately on behalf of another, not oneself.
Jewish tradition holds that when a rabbi was asked if he could stand on one leg and explain the meaning of the Torah, he did so with this, paraphrased: "be kind to each other." It's based on Leviticus 19:18, "Love your neighbor as yourself, I am God."
Here's an interesting twist on kindness... From The Heresy of Kindness, "They asked the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Hasidic Judaism): "'The Talmud tells us that for every thing God forbade, He provided us something permissible of the same sort. He forbade us to eat blood and permitted the liver. He forbade milk and meat and permitted the cow's udder. If so, what did He permit that corresponds to the sin of heresy?' The Baal Shem Tov replied: 'Acts of kindness.' Because, when you see a person suffering, you don't say, 'God runs the universe. God will take care. God knows what is best.' You do everything in your power to relieve that suffering as though there is no God. You become a heretic in God's name."
One way to increase your own happiness is to provide happiness to others through kindness.
Bonus
The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis
The title above is a clickable link to info about the book.
I'm only about 100 pages into this nearly 700-page book. I'm about to enter the section on the Garden of Eden. Which means I've only gotten through Creation at this point. And already the ah-ha moments are legion.
For example, "For the Bible, wisdom comes not from wonder but from awe and reverence, and the goal is not understanding for its own sake but rather a righteous and holy life."
Before we learn philosophically about any particular person (Abraham comes first), we learn from Adam and Eve through Noah about human nature. More specifically, we learn wise, universal teachings about human nature. To quote the author, Leon Kass, "so much happens that always happens."
"All things are creatures of God, that is, created by God." The text doesn't say created from what. It says nothing about what it's the beginning of. But still, it does say what it's not by denying alternatives. "By leaving mysterious what is naturally mysterious, we begin to trust the text."
"All the beings mentioned are known to us. No mythical beasts, no gods, no godesses. We know what land, air, and sea are. What skies and stars are. By addressing human beings exactly as human beings experience the world, Genesis begins with what is both familiar and first for us and for all mankind."
Kass discusses what it means to be in God's image, the Hebrew word meaning "cut or chiseled off." The narrative points out that "God does some things just as we do: commands, names, blesses, hallows, makes, beholds, is concerned with goodness, addresses animals and their needs."
The "first" Creation story ends with man, the second begins with man. And among other things we see immediately man developing skills, namely naming and reason (rational thinking).
And on and on, at least through the first 100 pages. It's as dense and meaningful as Prager's Rational Bible. Lots of ah-ha's!