Listen, learn, love

Hod - which is grace and smallness, humility, is our focus in the sphere of love and kindness today (we are leaving behind the fifth day of the Omer and entering the sixth tonight).

Humility can be a source of sympathy: "I can't possibly understand what's going on with someone else. I must silence all my voices to listen and understand who they are, what they feel, and what they need from me."

In order to be loving and compassionate we must meet people where they are, not where we think they are.

Listen and learn so that we can love. 

Day 5 of the Omer

Hod in Chesed - grace, the sense of our smallness, in compassion.​

When we see ourselves as small, we connect sympathetically with every one, even every thing. Sympathy can be a source for compassion, and can be essential for kindness in a helpful way.​

When we offer help, we often want to contribute in our own way. Assistance may often be most effective when we allow the person we hope to assist to design the manner in which we help.​

As a parent might often say to a child, "I need you to help me in the way that I need help, not in the way that you think you need to help."​

Assistance requires listening - compassion requires sympathy.​