God’s thirteen attributes of mercy

The thirteen attributes of mercy. They’re a prayer. A chant. A lament. A song of gratitude. A song of hope. A song of trusting.

When I chant these few lines of Torah, found in parsha Ki Tisa, they affect me on a visceral level, more deeply than perhaps any other.

The Israelites have just come through the incident of the golden calf.

Moshe has received the law, been taught the entire Torah by God, on the top of Mount Sinai. He is at the pinnacle of his spiritual ascension, risen as high through the worlds as a human possibly can, and he longs to see God’s glory, to know God completely. Moshe yearns to touch God and God yearns to touch Moshe, with a desire that makes me think of the lovers in the Song of Songs. But God knows that if this were to happen, Moshe would be absorbed into The One and cease to exist.

God explains to him that no one, not even Moshe, can look upon the Glory directly and continue to live a human life. To fully look upon the Glory of The One is incongruous with the physical manifestation of a soul.

God offers him the next best thing. God tells Moshe to hide himself in a cleft of the rock, from where he will be able to gaze upon God’s “back” as God passes by him.

And what does he hear? After all that has transpired with the sin of the golden calf? God does not show him the qualities of Divine judgement, the anger and fury that was so recently expressed.

What Moshe hears are God’s thirteen attributes of Mercy.

Mercy and Love—these are the predominant attributes of the One.

And they’re the words we still cry out today, on Yom Kippur and at any time when we are in dire need of God’s mercy.

“Adonai! Adonai! God, Compassionate and Gracious, Slow to anger and Abundant in Kindness and Truth, Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations, Forgiver of iniquity, willful sin, and error, and Who Cleanses (but does not cleanse completely, recalling the iniquity of parents upon children and grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations)” 

But what do these words really mean? Let’s unpack them, one by one.

My comments here are based on the teachings of Rabbenu Tam and Abudraham.

First, the Torah doesn’t waste words. If a word is repeated, there’s a reason. There’s a subtle difference in meaning.

Adonai! (The Lord!): God is merciful before a person sins! Even though God is aware that future evil lies dormant within them.

Adonai! (The Lord!): God is merciful after the sinner has gone astray.

El (God): a name of God that denotes power as ruler over nature and humankind. God’s mercy sometimes surpasses even the power that’s indicated by this Name.

rakhum (Compassionate): God is filled with loving sympathy for human frailty, does not put people into situations of extreme temptation, and eases the punishment of the guilty.

v’hanun (Gracious): God shows mercy even to those who do not deserve it, consoling the afflicted and raising up the oppressed.

erekh apayim (Slow to anger): God gives the sinner ample time to reflect, improve, and repent.

v’rav khesed (Abundant in Kindness): God is kind toward those who lack personal merits, providing more gifts and blessings than they deserve; if one’s personal behavior is evenly balanced between virtue and sin, God tips the scales of justice toward the good.

v’emet  (Truth): God never reneges on God’s word to reward those who serve God.

notzeir khesed la-alafim (Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations): God remembers the deeds of the righteous for the benefit of their less virtuous generations of offspring, which is why we constantly invoke the merit of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs.

nosei avon (Forgiver of iniquity): God forgives intentional sin resulting from an evil disposition, as long as the sinner repents.

– Forgiver of willful sin (pesha)–God allows even those who commit a sin with the malicious intent of rebelling against and angering Him the opportunity to repent.

– Forgiver of error (v’hata’ah)–God forgives a sin committed out of carelessness, thoughtlessness, or apathy.

– Who cleanses (v’nakeh)–God is merciful, gracious, and forgiving, wiping away the sins of those who truly repent; however, if one does not repent, God does not cleanse.

But the last word, the full verse in the Torah is not v’nakeh—it’s v’nakeh lo y’nakeh!”

The rabbis cut off the last verse, so that Who cleanses but does not cleanse becomes simply, Who cleanses.

This changes the meaning from:

God is merciful, gracious, and forgiving, wiping away the sins of those who truly repent; however, if one does not repent, God does not cleanse.

to

Who cleanses but does not cleanse completely, recalling the iniquity of parents upon children and grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations.

That’s a big difference. The first thought, the ones the rabbis chose, sounds fair. If one repents, one is cleansed of any and all sins, but if one doesn’t repent, one is not cleansed. Makes perfect sense.

But the second thought, the original from the Torah, does not sound fair at all. If one repents one is cleansed, but not completely because that person is still guilty of the sins of their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Where’s the justice in that? How can one possibly be responsible for what their predecessors did?

Let’s compare these two verses:

Provider of kindness, preserver of kindness for thousands of generations.

and

Who cleanses but does not cleanse completely, recalling the iniquity of parents upon children and grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations.

Here’s what we’re saying:

This generation is far lower in spirituality than were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebekka, Rachel, and Leah. But in appealing to God, we are permitted to rest on our ancestors’ merits, to remind God that we are their descendants, so out of your love for them, please have mercy, take pity on us, let their good deeds be ascribed to us.

and

No matter how much we repent, how much we regret past behaviors and want to disassociate from them, we can’t be forgiven completely because our parents and grandparents didn’t repent of their sins.

This is an apparent contradiction, a disconnect.

Do we have a God who loves us so much that the rules will be bent in our favor, like the parent who forgoes punishment and always gives one more chance? Or, do we have a God so filled with anger against our parents that we’ll be punished for their deeds?

I find that if something makes no sense when I look straight at it, I often need to turn it sideways and look at it from another angle. So let’s do that.

In Exodus 34:7 we’re told that sins will be punished unto the seventh generation.  On the surface this seems like an unjust sentence upon innocents. But this is not that. This is not a sentence; it’s a warning. It’s a warning to parents.

Children learn much from the words of their parents—do this, don’t do that, this is right, this is wrong… They may or may not rebel against those teachings when they reach their teens and then adulthood.

But those things they learn from watching what their parents do, from the things that come so naturally to their parents, are so obvious, that they don’t bother to speak of them, those are the things that become knitted to children’s psyches, become an integral part of who they are. Kids pick up on how their parents treat each other, how they talk about other family members and neighbors, how they think and talk about people from other cultures, people who have other ways of thinking and different opinions. They learn from how their parents approach life—do they always play it safe, or are they risk-takers? Do they stand up for themselves? For others? Or are they bullies or are they bullied themselves. What do they value? Do they honor themselves, or do they berate themselves?  Children absorb like sponges and what they’re exposed to becomes a part of them.

Children learn what they live and they’re inclined to repeat the mistakes made by their parents.  Inappropriate behaviors and attitudes are likely to persist “unto the seventh generation,” or, with the number seven representing the end of a cycle, until the end of that cycle. The cycle will persist until someone down the line experiences an epiphany; until an event, either external or internal, causes that someone to become aware and enlightened and choose a different path.

And God knows the handicaps that are a part of us, that have been fused to us by others, the sins we’ve been ingrained with. They can’t be completely washed away until we become aware of them and release them, but God cleanses as much as God can cleanse, until we open our eyes, see, and cleanse ourselves. Meanwhile, God forgives all.

God told Abraham to “Go forth” and turn away from the doctrines of family and home.  Thus, this warning is an echo of God’s call to Abraham, God’s chosen one - a call to each of us to go forth, take nothing we think or believe for granted, and live our lives in a new way.