{"id":68214,"date":"2020-01-06T16:27:55","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T14:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=68214"},"modified":"2023-07-31T12:18:48","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T09:18:48","slug":"radical-divine-lovingkindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/radical-divine-lovingkindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical Divine Lovingkindness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the great advances launched by the Hebrew Bible and its daughter religions, is the conviction that God\u2019s love is not merely for the prominent, the powerful, or the patricians. Breaking with all prior religions, the Bible affirms that God\u2019s love is centered on the poor, the marginalized, the lonely. A God whose greatness is measured not by wealth, not by pomp, not by social status, but by the resilience of God\u2019s lovingkindness that extends to us all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaiah affirms that revolutionary sentiment in powerful words: <\/span><\/p>\n

For the mountains may be moved and the hills may falter, but My lovingkindness shall not be removed from you and My covenant of peace shall not falter, said the One who shows you mercy, the Lord.<\/span><\/p>\n

Compared to God\u2019s persistent love, even the timeless mountains look unsteady and impermanent. God is, by definition, the one who shows you mercy, the one whose lovingkindness does not have to be earned and can never be taken away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two great religious advances are embodied in these inspiring verses:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Religion is no longer demanding human servants to do the grunt work necessary for the nobles and the wealthy to monopolize eternal rewards. Instead, radically, the religion of Israel creates a covenant between God and the entire people \u2013 everyone is included, and the point of religion is no longer to meet divine needs, but rather, to channel divine mercy and love to meet human needs.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Greatness is no longer measured by coercive power or violence, but by the triumphant capacity of resilient love. God sides with the slaves against Pharaoh and his brutality. God unites the fugitive Hebrews with the marginal Canaanites to create a new federation of freedom-loving Israelites who are united under the ideal that one law pertains to everyone, citizen and resident alien alike.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The ancient rabbis correctly noted that the only reasonable response to that divine reality is for us to strive to imitate it, both individually and as a society: \u201cCleave to acts of lovingkindness (Yalkut Shimoni 2:477).\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    God is great in mercy. God is good in lovingkindness. We burnish the image of the Divine only when we make those virtues primary and we live them day by day.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Radical Divine Lovingkindness","main_caption":"We burnish the image of the Divine only when we make mercy and lovingkindness primary, and live them day by day","main_caption_size":"2","sub_caption":"","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116887,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68214\/revisions\/116887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}