Love in Strength: the Unique Hesed of Abraham

Parashat Vayera, Genesis 18:1–22:24

David Nichol, Ruach Israel, Needham, MA

The Lord appeared to him by the terebinths of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and, bowing to the ground, he said, “My lords, if it please you, do not go on past your servant. Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree… (Gen 18:1-4)

Our patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, stand as archetypes in our tradition. In the first blessing of the Amidah, Hashem is called not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—but rather, the “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.” From this we learn that each of them had a unique, deeply individual relationship with God. (This also tells us something about relationships in general: they resist abstraction and generalization, and are necessarily dialectic, requiring each party to see, and respond to, the other.)

In our tradition, each patriarch is also associated with a particular trait (middah, plural middot). The words of the prophet Micah, “You will keep faith to Jacob, loyalty to Abraham” (Mic 7:20 JPS) can also be translated, “You will give truth to Jacob, ḥesed (kindness, love) to Abraham.” Between this verse and a close reading of the text, our sages associated Abraham with ḥesed, Jacob with truth, and Isaac with fear (Gen 31:42), as in fear, or awe, of God. 

I leave ḥesed untranslated because it is notoriously difficult to translate. It can be translated “love,” but I’m partial to “generous, sustaining benevolence,” per Alan Morinis (Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar). It stands at the intersection of generosity, selflessness, and love for the other. In our parasha this trait of Abraham shows up in the very first verse (Gen 18:1), where Rashi suggests that God sends the three angels out of kindness, as Abraham was grieved that there were no travelers for whom he could provide hospitality.

The text clearly emphasizes Abraham’s expansive capacity for hospitality in describing how he responds to these strangers who appear at his tent. Not only is he recovering from his recent circumcision (Gen 17:22–27), but according to one reading of these verses (attested by Rashi and others), while he is speaking with God who has appeared to him in verse 1, he essentially says to God, “Please hold” (“do not go on past your servant”) while I attend to these three travelers! He literally runs to greet them and persuade them to join him and proceeds to prepare a meal for them. He spares no expense for these random strangers who happen by.

Based on this and other events in Abraham’s life, the sages see him as a paragon of love and inclusion. He brought people from the surrounding societies in Haran and Canaan close to the one God through his example and his generosity. His camp is something like an extended family unit made up of those who had attached themselves to him (see Rashi on Gen 12:5, for example), like a nomadic outpost of monotheism, a kind of proto-Israel. 

It is fitting that the first of the patriarchs, the one who God called into special relationship at the beginning of the story of redemption, was one who showed ḥesed. Ḥesed is the engine of relationship. Every minute of our lives we are sustained by it, as God gives us another breath, and allows the sun to shine on the earth. “Hodu l’Adonai ki tov,” the refrain goes, “Give thanks to Hashem for he is good.” Why? “Ki le’olam ḥasdo,” because his ḥesed is eternal! The Psalms say that the world was built on the foundation of ḥesed (Ps. 89:3). Receiving God’s ḥesed, and paying it forward, is a reasonable way to understand our very purpose in this world.

A superficial reading of Genesis might miss this trait of Abraham, since many of the key moments in the narrative don’t seem to emphasize his ḥesed at all. He sends away Lot, Hagar, and Ishmael, and is apparently willing to sacrifice his son. This makes sense, however, if understood from the perspective of mussar, especially as read by R. Eliyahu Dessler, an influential 20th-century mussar master and philosopher. As R. Dessler explains it (particularly in his essay “Our Forefathers’ Attributes,” Strive for Truth!, vol 5), because Abraham’s greatest middah was ḥesed, his many difficult tests came in other areas where he was comparatively weaker. 

It is no surprise that one who is a master of ḥesed will occasionally struggle to hold strong boundaries, or to show tough love. In fact, R. Dessler points out the tests in Abraham’s life tended to test his gevurah, or strength: fighting the four kings (Gen 14), certainly qualifies, but imagine how much strength and discipline were required to send away Hagar and Ishmael into the desert or place Isaac upon an altar as an offering? According to the midrash (Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer), sending Ishmael and Hagar away was the hardest test for Abraham until that point. And yet, when Sarah demands that he do so, Abraham embodies ḥesed by not challenging her, and gevurah by acting on it without delay, once God tells him to listen to her. Gevurah, this strength to create boundaries and act against one’s nature, is more associated with Isaac, and is, at its best, rooted in yirat Hashem, fear of God.

Mastering love, hospitality, and inclusion came more easily to Abraham than does gevurah, the inner strength (rooted in fear of God) that is needed to be tough and make hard choices. In other words, Abraham’s great righteousness came, not from his natural strength of giving ḥesed, but in how he was able to suppress that ḥesed by means of gevurah when necessary. 

So we see that the middah of ḥesed requires gevurah to be in proper balance. R. Dessler writes,

A person whose main quality is ḥesed is in danger that, in his yearning to give to others, he may spend more money than he can afford. Then, he will borrow from others and spend it in turn. Eventually it will be found that his excessive desire to do ḥesed was counterproductive [and] there is also the possibility that he will be “merciful to the cruel,” leading to “cruelty to the merciful.”

Similarly, an overly merciful parent failing to teach their child boundaries is showing no kindness at all. The angel who stays Abraham’s hand from sacrificing Isaac does not say, “Now I know that you love God…” but rather, “Now I know that you fear God” (22:12, JPS). On the other side, gevurah itself must be tempered with ḥesed lest one become inflexible and overly strict.

Somewhat ironically, the gevurah Abraham expressed in sending Ishmael away became ḥesed to Isaac, who could then be the heir he was supposed to be. The gevurah he expressed sending away Lot was in fact an act of ḥesed, allowing Lot not only to take the most fruitful land, but giving him space to preserve their relationship. And the gevurah required to place Isaac on the altar eventually resulted in blessing and life for the Jewish people.

By expressing gevurah and ḥesed together in relationship, we are actually practicing imitatio Dei, following in God’s footsteps, as it were. What Abraham demonstrates in these examples is called “ḥesed shebigevurah” (literally the love that is in strength), a sustaining love that is expressed in strength and restraint. It is this kind of ḥesed that Isaac showed as he held back and allowed Abraham to place him on the altar (22:9); that Yeshua embodied taking on the limitations of earthly life; and that the Omnipotent One shows in holding back and giving us space to live, even as imperfect vessels.

As we go through each day we will encounter many opportunities to love others by restraining ourselves, whether by setting boundaries, giving tough love, or by holding ourselves back to give others space. May God grant us the strength and wisdom to follow the example of our patriarchs and Yeshua our master; and may we have the gevurah to be masters of ḥesed; and thus lend our hands to the redemption of the world.

Note: the letter “H” with a dot beneath it is pronounced like the “ch” in “Bach.”