Walking in God's ways means that we should pattern our behavior on the Divine attributes. The book of Deuteronomy says we should follow God’s commandments and walk in God’s ways, co-equal treatment. But our tradition has overly emphasized the obedience to commandments and laws and underemphasized the walking in God’s ways part.

There are very specific suggestions for how we can walk in God's ways, including comforting mourners and visiting the sick.

The key word there is “do.” It's not enough to have good intentions or to feel bad that someone’s parent died. We are expected to take action to help support other people.

This means we are expected to show up to a funeral to give comfort. We are expected to show up for our friends when they need help and we are expected to support widows and orphans who have less than we do.

Chesed is THE core Jewish value. It means to act to support another without expecting anything in return. It can be translated as lovingkindness, or compassion, and is a Divine attribute. The Bible also describes the Divine’s enduring love and loyalty to the Jewish people, even when we go astray. When we play for Team Chesed, we emulate the Divine acts of Chesed, which is the most important part of our Jewishness.

Rav chesed means abundant in hesed/lovingkindness. The phrase comes from the 13 attributes of God in Exodus 34:6-7. When we join Team Chesed, we dedicate ourselves to becoming abundant in hesed too.

Yes, Hesed is also a commandment. However, it is also more than a commandment and is given special treatment in many ways. For example, Hesed is also an attribute of God, one of the Sephirot in Kabbalah, and a soul trait that we can cultivate in Mussar.

There is no difference between the two spellings. These are two different ways to transliterate the Hebrew word into English.

Everything. Hesed is in the Jewish Bible 247 times. Much of what we think of as kindness in the western world has its origins in Judaism. We have lost sight of the critical importance of Hesed because so much of Jewish teaching focuses on following Jewish law.

A lot! Chesed is one of our central virtues that we are invited to cultivate.

The key point is that lovingkindness/Chesed is always about an act, not an intention. It is doing As Rabbi Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Rabbi Greg disagrees. “It depends on what you mean by try. We don’t need to be perfect; we just need to act with a little more Chesed than we normally do. Over time, our Chesed muscles will get stronger.”

Judaism teaches that kindness is superior to charity in three ways. Charity can only be done with money, but kindness can be done with money, or with your person. Charity is given to the poor, while kindness can be given to the rich and poor alike. Finally, charity is for the living, and kindness can be given to both the living and dead. This is taught in the Talmud in Sukkah 49b.

When the Talmud gives a list like this, it is an invitation for us to generalize the principle, using these examples.

Have questions, confusion or curiosity? Let’s set up a time to discuss. I’d love to hear your take.

Kindness/Chesed shows up in the Torah in multiple ways. For example, we see Chesed mentioned twice as an attribute of God in Exodus 34:6-7. We have an opportunity to emulate the Divine examples of Chesed. For example, God comforts Issac after the death of his mother, and we have an opportunity to comfort mourners. God buries Moses at the end of the Torah, so we can bury the dead. Just as God feeds the hungry with Mana, we can feed the hungry. Just as God clothes the naked, we can cloth the naked (which is taken to mean providing for the poor.)

The book of Genesis also has multiple examples of people acting with Chesed, such as Abraham jumping up to show hospitality to visitors in Genesis 18, while he was recovering from his circumcision at the age of 99. In Genesis 24:20, Rebecca took extra care to water each camel individually.  Showing hospitality to visitors and caring for animals are both ways that we can practice Chesed today.

I don’t know a lot about Kabbalah, so I may be running with scissors here. I am much more into Mussar, which is the practical spiritual cousin of Kabbalah.

Hesed is one of the ten Divine sephirot in the Kabbalistic tree of life. The Sephirot are Divine emanations that are embodied in a network throughout the body, most of which correspond to the chakra in Yoga practice.

What is most important for our purposes is that Hesed is about much more than a Mitzvah, a commandment that we are supposed to follow. It is an attribute of the Divine as described in both the Torah and subsequent mystical and other Jewish literature. Whether or not you resonate with Jewish mysticism, we all have an opportunity to live a life dedicated to emulating the Divine attribute of Hesed.

Hesed is acting to support another person without expecting anything in return. When we practice Hesed, we strive to act wholeheartedly, and not act out of guilt or against our own interests. When we need to set a boundary, we set them kindly but firmly.

Being nice on the other hand, is about being pleasant and polite. Sometimes we act nicely out of guilt or shame and are not honest with our feelings or needs.

We can and still should set healthy boundaries, and practice Hesed v’emet – kindness with truth. This means sometimes we need to give a hard truth, but delivered with kindness and respect. Being nice has a connotation of not hurting someone’s feelings. As a New Yorker, it was hard for me to adjust to the California culture of niceness, where people won’t tell you if they are mad.

Kindness in Hebrew is Hesed. However, Hesed is a hard word to translate, especially as it is used in Jewish literature. It can be translated as lovingkindness, compassion or loyally remaining steadfast. Most importantly, Hesed is about building a world where we support each other through acts of kindness without asking for anything in return.

A great place to start is AmericanMussar.com, founded by Rabbi Greg.