Chesed: Channeling Love for Ourselves, Each Other, and the World
by Debra Seltzer
NOTE: This is the 7th and final post in a series written by KSS members linking social and environmental justice issues to the 7 sephirot of the Omer cycle. To read the past six posts, please check our blog archive.
We have come to the last week of this seven week series leading up to the days of awe on the Jewish Calendar, Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur. At the end of this week in our liturgy the gates of heaven open and we are called to an accounting of our soul, which depending on our own core beliefs may be an encounter within our own self or between our self and the divine.
Moving through the sephirot in the opposite direction from the order in the spring Counting of the Omer, we come this week to Chesed. In Counting the Omer, Rabbi Min Kantrowitz teaches: “Chesed reminds us that our unconscious contains the archetype of unconditional love, the perfect, unquestioning love that we all deserve. In this week of Chesed, we recognize that unending love is always available, and we start to accept it, receive it, and allow it to enrich us and then to channel it through us into the world.”
As I have worked with others to create and write the prior six posts in this series, reflecting on the work we are doing in the areas of justice related to Israel-Palestine, environmental justice, food justice, reproductive justice, support for refugees, and being anti-racist, what has stood out the most for me is how deeply these conversations are rooted, in a variety of ways, with relationships – with our loved ones, our neighbors, our communities near and far, and our global network of humanity.
In one description of the divine creating the world, God had to contract into self to make space for others in order to have others with whom to be in relationship. As beings created in God’s image, we are both in relationship with God and with one another as our reason for existence. The precious gift of this time before the holidays and our upcoming days of worship supports our noticing and reinforcing that unending love which is available to us and which we are invited to channel out to others. We do this through our near love for family and friends and through challenging and difficult but essential work we do to heal the world and make it a better place for all. We are called at this time to tap into the power of that love and re-commit to building those healthy and enduring relationships in order to bring justice to all the places in the world that it is missing.
I would like to close this series on social justice and the sephirot by sharing a prayer with which i was gifted, I no longer remember how exactly, which works to the traditional tune by which we sing “Avenu Malkenu” – credited in my copy as adapted from Shefa Gold, as told by the Velveteen Rabbi, Rachel Barenblat:
Our Center, Whole Being that we are
Now open the ears of our hearts
Our deep inner self, o’now open our hearts that we may
grace this world with our deeds.
Let us bring forth
all that we are
Through lives
of justice and love
Let us become
more loving and just
To set free
The Light that we are.
I share this as an offering for our prayer during this coming season as the gates of heaven open for us, to reaffirm our commitment to justice and love and “setting free the Light that we are.”