Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Omer 2024 Day 8


Day 8: Chesed within Gevurah, Lovingkindness within Strength

Last week, we discussed how we find strength in kindness. Today, we are looking at the reverse: seeking kindness in strength.

While we established last week that kindness and strength are not opposing concepts, they often feel like they are. We often expect less kindness from strong people, less emotion, less empathy. We often expect strength and power to harden people, and conversely assume that kind, empathetic people are less strong. If you're a fan of the show Ted Lasso, this is a theme that the show played into quite effectively. Ted is overly kind and, as such, is often misjudged by those around him. This scene of Ted playing darts with his boss' ex-husband (who is not a good guy, in case you couldn't tell from the context) is a good example:


Kindness has a way of making us think that people are weak or can be walked all over. But showing kindness, even when we have the upper-hand (perhaps especially when we have the upper-hand) is the kind of strength to which we should aspire.

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