DID YOU KNOW?
This week’s “Did You Know” was written by a prominent professor and long-time member of Alcoholics Anonymous: In Arabia, the Koran spoke over and over of Allah’s mercy and compassion, and commanded human beings to perform acts of grace and charity for all those who were suffering and were in need. One of the central human duties in authentic Islam to this day is to make charitable contributions to needy people—quite often in the modern world to enable a poor person to obtain medical care or to help obtain an education—so that we may be gracious to others as Allah has been gracious to mankind. There is a profound spiritual insight in Islam’s understanding that healing and teaching are two of the primary modes of grace. There are of course also the two major duties of good A.A. people, where our task is to heal the disease of alcoholism and to teach a higher and better way of life.
God’s gracious acts of loving kindness (hesed), is also rooted in Judaism. The heart of Judaism lay in the scene on Mount Sinai, where the voice from the burning bush told Moses that he had heard the agonized cries of his children who were trapped in the forced labor camps of Egypt, and was going to come and save them by his grace, with a strong right hand and an outstretched arm. The words of the Passover (seder), which is celebrated every year by Jewish families all over the world, celebrate all the countless acts of divine grace—acts of concrete loving kindness—which have helped the people of Israel over the centuries.
The important Hebrew word hesed has as one of its primary meanings the quality of graciousness, the unfailing effort to help all who are suffering, by reaching out to them with deeds of loving kindness. A deed of hesed is an act of grace. As the Holy One says through the prophet Hosea, “I desire hesed and not sacrifice,” that is, people who perform concrete acts of loving kindness for others, not all the fancy rituals and rules of organized religion. Melek Ha’olam, the King of the Universe, is not nearly as impressed with religion and religiosity as most human beings sometimes are. All good Jews know in their hearts that Hosea was right, that the primary command of the Torah is not to carry out endless religious rituals, but to act graciously—that is, with compassion and concrete help—towards all who are downtrodden and helpless to defend themselves: widows, orphans, the poor people, resident aliens working in one’s country (“the stranger in your midst”), and those who have no food or clothes.
The Rabinic literature makes this clear over and over again. To give an example, we could look at the rabbinic comments on the Ten Commandments, where it pointed out that even though one of these commandments says, “You shall not steal,” a poor person who comes and collects some of the fallen fruit under your olive tree after you have finished your harvest is not stealing from you and breaking that commandment. In fact, the rabbis say, it is your duty under the Torah to deliberately leave the corners of all your fields un-harvested, so that you can invite any poor people in your area to come in and take whatever is growing there. They are not stealing from you, and paradoxically it is you who are breaking the commandments if you do not give to them and give freely, regardless of whether you think they do or do not “deserve” help. The first duty of Torah is the preservation of life, a commandment which any good rabbi would tell you takes precedence over all other rules of Torah. You cannot site other rules of Torah to defend an action which imperils the preservation of life. No one “deserves” the death sentence simply for being lazy, stupid, or irresponsible. To be continued…
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