The mystics of our tradition saw great meaning in the counting of the Omer, which is marked each night between Passover and Shavuot. In its cycle of seven days, counted seven times, they saw a parallel to the sefirot, the system by which the Kabbalists understood the Divine attributes. Each week is dedicated to a particular attribute, and each day of that week focuses on the intersection of two Divine attributes. This week, the first of the Omer, we focus on chesed: lovingkindness or compassion.

Today is the fourth day of the Omer
Netzach she-b’chesed: Endurance in lovingkindness

כִּֽי־אָמַ֗רְתִּי ע֭וֹלָם חֶ֣סֶד יִבָּנֶ֑ה שָׁמַ֓יִם ׀ תָּכִ֖ן אֱמוּנָתְךָ֣ בָהֶֽם׃

For I have said that the world will be built on kindness, and the heavens will be established on Your faith. (Psalms 89:3)

Rabbi Menachem Creditor’s daughter was born right after the attacks on September 11, 2001. To hear him tell it, he looked around and was thinking about the world in which she would grow up. In that looking around, he saw all this hatred, all this violence and suffering, and he longed for his daughter to grow up in a world of love—to grow up seeing the beauty in the world instead of (or despite) the evil.

Inspired by that idea, he wrote a song based on Psalm 89:3. God says that the world will be built on kindness—but whose?

Olam chesed yibaneh
I will build this world from love
And you must build this world from love
And if we build this world from love
Then God will build this world from love

Brent Levy, pastor at The Local Church in Pittboro, N.C., wrote the following about Rabbi Creditor’s song. The commentary resonates particularly strongly this week, as we focus on lovingkindness, and on this day, which is dedicated to its endurance.

Creditor recognized that to build a whole world of love starts with an individual. When I build my world in love, when I surround myself in positivity and share goodness with those I encounter, I make the world around me a little brighter, and in turn encourage you to do the same. And when we together build each other and the world around ourselves in love, God will work in us and through us.

For Rabbi Creditor, “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” is a song of resistance, a song of hope, a song that declares, “I won’t stand for hatred,” but instead “I stand for love.” And what is more enduring than resistance? Than hope? What is more enduring than love?

—Rabbi Sari Laufer