50 | FEBRUARY 2 • 2023 

O

ne of the secrets of human great-
ness is knowing where to direct 
our limited energy and time in 
order to make an imprint on the world 
and transform ourselves. Because our 
resources are finite, we need to think stra-
tegically; we need to focus 
our attention on the things 
that have maximum impact. 
The question is: What kind 
of actions have maximum 
impact?
The Torah, God’s own 
handbook on living the best 
life, can give us direction. 
In this week’s parshah, Beshalach, we 
encounter one of the most inspiring and 
illuminating moments in Jewish history — 
the splitting of the Sea of Reeds. 
The Jewish people have left Egypt amid 
a swirl of miraculous supernatural events. 
Pharaoh then decides to bring us back to 
slavery and pursues us to the edge of the 
sea. The Jewish people are hemmed in by 
the vast expanse of water on one side and 
by the Egyptian army on the other, and 
God splits the sea, enabling the Jewish 
people to pass through on dry land, with 

the Egyptian soldiers drowning in the 
depths when they try to follow. 
In the aftermath of this miracle, which 
arrives on top of all of the miracles of the 
Exodus from Egypt, the Jewish people 
spontaneously break out in song, declar-
ing: “This is my God, and I will glorify 
Him.” (Exodus 15:2) Our sages explain that 
the word “this” indicates they had such a 
degree of prophetic insight that they were, 
in a manner of speaking, able to point to 
God, and perceive Him with a clarity that 
even the greatest prophets in later genera-
tions were unable to experience.
The phrase: “
And I will glorify Him” 
— in Hebrew, “v’anveihu” — is a gateway 
to understanding how best to direct our 
efforts for how to change the world. The 
Talmud (Shabbat 133b) points out that 
v’anveihu actually comprises two words: 
“Ani v’hu — me and him.” The Talmud 
explains this is teaching us a fundamental 
lesson on how to live: “Be similar to Him 
— just as God is gracious and compas-
sionate, you, too, should be gracious and 
compassionate.” 
In other words, the way we glorify God 
is by being compassionate, like Him.

What does this mean practically? The 
Torah says: “You shall follow God your 
Lord” (Devarim 13:5). The Gemara (Sotah 
14a) defines this as follows: just as Hashem 
clothes the naked, visits the sick, comforts 
the mourner and buries the dead, so, too, 
should we strive to follow Him in these 
endeavors, emulating His kindness and 
compassion.
The Talmud gives examples for each of 
these acts of kindness: God clothed Adam 
and Eve when they realized they were 
naked; He visited Abraham when he was 
recovering from his late-life circumcision; 
He comforted Isaac after the death of his 
mother, Sarah; and He buried Moses.
The Rambam includes chessed, kindness, 
among the list of positive commandments 
(mitzvah N. 8), based on another verse: 
“You shall walk in the ways of God.” 
We see that in Judaism, doing kindness, 
chessed, isn’t just a nice thing to do. As one 
of the 613 commandments, it is no less 
than an obligation.
And here’s the crucial factor — chessed 
is the only one of the 613 commandments 
where the source of the mitzvah is the 
conduct of Hashem, Himself. For all of the 
other mitzvot, God says “this is what you 
should do” or “this is what you shouldn’t 
do.” But when it comes to chessed, Hashem 
says: “Do what I do.” 
From here, we learn something very 
profound: to be kind is to be Godly. When 
we are kind, we are doing God’s work on 
this Earth. And that’s the real power of 
chessed: its source is the source of all power. 
Rooted in God’s own behavior, it has the 
capacity to create and transform worlds. 
This explains why chessed is considered 
one of the “three things on which the 
world stands.” (Pirkei Avot 1:2) Let’s probe 
a bit deeper into this mitzvah of emulating 
our Creator through acts of kindness.

THE MITZVAH OF CHESSED
Firstly, the idea of following God’s exam-
ple by alleviating human suffering is an 
expression of being — as the Talmud puts 
it — a “partner with God in creation.” 
(Shabbat 10a) God created the world in 
six days, but it didn’t end there. The work 
of “creating” the world — of nurturing 
and sustaining human life, of making 
the world a better, kinder place — is an 

continued on page 51

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

Chief Rabbi 
Warren 
Goldstein 

How To Become 
Great

