Bringing God into the world through the 13 attributes

We studied a passage from the Sefer Ba'al Shem Tov last week and as we were studying the sources behind the text, I went in a different direction than the text. So I'll present the sources and how they formed my thoughts.

This post has a lot of text quotes. I like to provide as much original texts as possible to inform as well as empower. These are my conclusions, but far from the only possible interpretation. If you have the whole text, you can come up with your own interpretation.

The first is from the 3rd Chapter of Joel:

ה וְהָיָה, כֹּל אֲשֶׁר-יִקְרָא בְּשֵׁם יְהוָה--יִמָּלֵט: כִּי בְּהַר-צִיּוֹן וּבִירוּשָׁלִַם תִּהְיֶה פְלֵיטָה, כַּאֲשֶׁר אָמַר יְהוָה, וּבַשְּׂרִידִים, אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה קֹרֵא.

5 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as the LORD hath said, and among the remnant those whom the LORD shall call.

The question that arose from this is what does it mean to call on the name of the lord? How does one do it?

One answer can be found in Sifrei Devarim 49:

ללכת בכל דרכיו, אלו הן דרכי מקום?
"ה' אל רחום וחנון" (שמות לד ו)
ואומר: "והיה כל אשר יקרא בשם ה' ימלט" (יואל ג ה)
וכי היאך איפשר לו לאדם לקרא בשמו של מקום?
אלא נקרא המקום רחום - אף אתה היה רחום,
הקדוש ברוך הוא נקרא חנון - אף אתה היה חנון, שנאמר: "חנון ורחום ה'" וגו' (תהלים קמה ח) ועשה מתנות חנם,
נקרא המקום צדיק, שנאמר: "כי צדיק ה' צדקות אהב" (תהלים יא ז) - אף אתה היה צדיק,
נקרא המקום חסיד, שנאמר: "כי חסיד אני נאם ה'"(ירמיה ג יב) - אף אתה היה חסיד.
לכך נאמר: "והיה כל אשר יקרא בשם ה' ימלט"(יואל ג ה) ואומר: "כל הנקרא בשמי ולכבודי בראתיו יצרתיו אף עשיתיו" (ישעיה מג ז) ואומר: "כל פעל ה' למענהו"(משלי טז ד) .

"To Walk in all his ways." (Deut 10:12) What are the ways of God?
"God, God, a merciful and gracious God." (Ex. 34:6)
And it is said: "Whoever will call on the name of God shall be saved." (Joel 3:5)
How is it possible for a person to call on the name of God?
God is called Compassionate - you also be compassionate;
The holy one, blessed be he, is merciful - you too be merciful, as it is said: "God is gracious and compassionate" (Psalms 145:8) and you should give unconditionally;
God is called righteous, as is said: "For God is righteous, Justice he loves" (Psalms 11:7) - so you be righteous;
God is called Merciful - as it is said: "For I am merciful, says God." (Jeremiah 3:12) - You too be merciful.

I think the simple reading of the text is that when one does something merciful, one is calling the name of the God. Another way of reading it would be to say that when one does something merciful, one is bringing God into the world. That to embody the attributes of God is to bring God's presence into the world. I connected this to my idea of the messianic age - when it comes no one will notice. It's not that God sends someone down to save us, but we raise the world up to God. In that sense, going back to Joel, those who embody God will be saved, and such, will save us all.

My pragmatic side made me think about how one does this. I think I need to think and explore a lot more about the 13 attributes of God, but one thing that strikes me is that they are very vague attributes. They are not specific actions, but philosophical principals. So how does one encourage this in oneself and in others?

One of the child-rearing principals I hold to is process based praise. Trait based praise is praising someone for being smart or pretty. Process based praise is praising them for the effort they put into things. An example would be a child who completes a puzzle - one can say that she succeeded because she is smart or because she thought carefully about where each piece goes. The child will then try to emulate the praise: the process based praised child will try to think more carefully about where each piece goes and ends up working harder. The trait based praised child will try to be smarter. But how does one do that? By succeeding, so that child will look for easier challenges to succeed at and get frustrated when she has to work harder at things because it indicates that she isn't smart.

Applying this to the 13 attributes, one needs to praise oneself for working towards Justice or putting effort into righteousness, not for the trait, but the process that leads to each. The next step is to determine one's personal gifts and how we can use those to bring God into the world using the 13 attributes as a guide.