Amazing Chesed: Living a Grace - Filled Judaism
Everyone knows the song Amazing Grace, and almost everyone thinks the grace in the song is only for Christians. Shapiro, an author, speaker, and rabbi, begs to differ. One Hebrew translation of chesed is grace, and Shapiro finds the Old Testament drenched in the idea that God’s grace is for everyone. The simile he uses is that God’s grace is like sunlight. The sun just shines—on everyone. But then the concept gets a bit trickier. The effect of the sun shining has duality: sometimes it warms, sometimes it burns. And it shines on everything, what we perceive to be good and bad. Quite soon readers are taken to a metaphysical plane that can be complicated to follow, although Shapiro, a patient guide, goes step-by-step and uses plenty of repetition and examples. Grounding his analyses in the everyday, he explains the practice of living graciously and draws on the Ten Sayings to show that Jews can use God’s light to repair the world. This is not a book to race through but, rather, one to puzzle over and ponder. --Ilene Cooper