ABSTRACT
The Mosaic law commands us to love one another as we love ourselves, and to love God with all our hearts, and souls, and might. Ahavah is the noun that names such love. But ḥesed names the action that links divine and human love. Often translated “lovingkindness,” ḥesed stands for grace and generosity. God’s act of creation is the paradigm case. For there was no prior claim on God before the act of creation. We cannot reciprocate God’s gifts. But we are called on to share them and to model and spread generosity itself. For the Torah prescribes emulation of God’s holiness and walking in His ways—most clearly by acts of kindness: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the bereaved. But, as Maimonides explains, reason invites us to emulate God as well insofar as we can know Him. Contemplating God’s perfection intensifies and rewards the love of God. And since we know God’s goodness best when we discover the hallmarks of His grace and wisdom in the design of nature, the intellectual love of God commands no mere meditative isolation. Rather, it issues further and deeper calls to active love of our fellow creatures.
