Midot Hayom 5770: Day 1: Chesed in Chesed

Four people came to recognize the Holy One, Blessed is He, on their own: Job, Abraham . . . (Bamidbar Rabbah 14:2). Whoever took a penny [of charity] from Job would be blessed (Pesachim 112a).

We immediately see two qualities of Chesed: One that it is associated with discovering God, and two, that it leads to more blessing.

Chesed is the ability to connect to the first expression of the Divine Will to create the world in order to “do good to another.” When an act of Chesed is an expression of a connection to that Divine Will, it leads to further blessing.

Tools:

Each act of Chesed must be done as a reflection of an acknowledgment that we exist only because of Divine Chesed. We cannot perform acts of Chesed in order to feel good about ourselves.

We can measure the quality of our Chesed by whether we measure it out based on our feelings about the recipient or whether we act in Chesed to all of creation. Perform acts of Chesed to everyone and everything, even by way of a warm greeting.

Use blessings as both an acknowledgment of God’s Chesed and as an act of Chesed to the food we are about to eat.

Approach prayer as both an acknowledgment of God’s Chesed and as a way of nurturing the Chesed that is the source of the entire creation.

Use your Tzedaka box as a “Thank You Machine,” placing the money in Tzedaka as a Thank You for the blessings in your life, thereby nurturing your blessings by expanding them into a Mitzvah.