the power of paying attention
building the world we want to see with tiny movements
adrienne maree brown reminds us about creating sustainable change with the idea that, “Small is good. Small is all.” (1) If you’re reading this on your phone or from your email, you probably have some understanding of the attention economy that the internet powers. It turns out that attention can also be an essential element of spiritual practice.
In the Hebrew Bible, transforming kinds of love show up in different words. You might be familiar with chesed. This word is used to talk about our duties to one another; the values that underlie being in community together, even and especially the community of humanity. Examples of this duty include visiting the sick, getting clothes to people who need them or feeding hungry folks. These can be considered the ordinary course of business for folks who are about the work of healing the world.
But wait. There’s more. Where chesed is usually translated as kindness, another kind of love, rachamim, is often translated as mercy; and, they are both love. How do they differ? (2) Rachamim is the love that we feel when we are moved to act in compassion. Rachamim calls us to a subtle alertness to and bias for action that meets the moment.(3)
Examples of rachamim include helping a friend out of a sticky situation, or as someone shared with me, her grandparents, the rabbi and rebbetzin, dropping off the pulpit flowers to a sick congregant. Rachamim is characterized by an instance of compassion, rather than systemic action to address an ongoing need, which we might characterize as principled action for justice and fairness, or tzedakah.
Those instances of compassion are something we can think of as microexposures to love. Microexposures to love can make all the difference in a world that is starving for love and healing. Sometimes the understanding of rachamim is equated to pity. I think that word choice is unfortunate because the modern connotation of pity is to feel sorry for someone and, in a way, look down on them. The original sense of the word pity was distinct from that; it wasn’t taking action to look down, but instead to be so deeply moved that action for the person’s care was the only option.
The deep movement of the heart, tenderness of the soul is a fuller view of rachamim. It is by paying attention in ways that lead to many movements that we offer healing to the world. It is the compassion of many hearts willing to take action for the wellbeing of the other that allows us to new futures of love and care. Allowing yourself to prefer a subtle alertness to and bias for action can allow you to be a channel of love. I hope you will consider it. (3)
https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/learning-stories-blog/small-is-good-small-is-all-building-a-community-of-practice/ba-p/22885
https://images.shulcloud.com/3195/uploads/DERASHOT/06YOM-TOV/PESACH/02PESACH5779TASS.pdf
Yehudah Webster, “Dismantling Racism From the Inside Out” (Zoom lecture, May 29, 2025). Specifically, Yehudah Webster described an aspect of rachamim as, “subtle alertness to action”.