CHESED
Chesed is loving kindness.
It corresponds to Jupiter in astrology. I like to also refer to Chesed as
the "way of the saint". When I was much younger, I did what all
Jewish boys do. I drifted into Eastern religions! Actually, there is a kabbalistic
teaching that many of the meditative practices of the east originated with
Abraham. This is based upon the Torah passage "But to the sons of the
concubines, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while
he yet lived, eastward, to the east country. (Genesis 25:6)" However,
to get back to my original point, when I was young I practiced all sorts
of oriental meditation techniques guaranteed to stimulate higher centers
and propel one into very exotic states of consciousness. I experienced ecstasy
upon ecstasy and even went beyond all duality. However, in spite of these
valuable experiences, I also realized that I still lacked the simple love
in my heart that my Aunt Margie possessed. If someone was hungry, she fed
them. If they needed shelter, she gave them a place to sleep. If it had
to come out of her pocket, so be it! My Aunt had a natural and effortless
abundance of Chesed, loving kindness, for the rest of humanity. I, on the
other hand, would become very irritated if anyone disturbed my precious,
meditative ecstasy! Thus, while I was thankful at the time for those things
I had attained through meditation, I also knew that my Aunt Margie functioned
at a much higher level of Chesed.
Once we have reached the level of Tiferet and made our moral soul a part
of us, we are in a position to make a larger contribution to the world.
These "beyond self" activities are represented by the loving kindness
of Chesed and the discipline of Gevurah. Among the patriarchs, Abraham is
the one most associated with Chesed. It is said that his tent was open on
all four sides so that he could receive all visitors that came his way.
He showed kindness and hospitality to all he encountered.
In the Talmud it says that the performance of charity is equivalent to
all the other commandments combined and that acts of loving kindness are
even greater than charity. We also know that there is no Torah without Chesed
in two ways. First, if we take the most sacred name that we have for G-d
and completely spell out the yud-hey-vav-hey in Hebrew, then the resulting
name has a numerical value of 72 which is the same as Chesed. Additionally,
the word Torah in Hebrew has a numberical value of 611, and Torah minus
Chesed is 611 less 72 which yields 539, and this is the numerical value
of "you have forsaken me (ayin-zayin-bet-tav-nun-yud)". Hence,
there is no Torah without Chesed.