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Gemilut Hassadim’ (the giving of loving-kindness), is, according to Our Sages (‘Chazal’), one of the Three Pillars upon which the world is founded. In the past, this concept looked inward focusing on the community, and it referred to charity, comforting the sick etc.
In this discussion, there is an attempt to expand this idea beyond the Jewish community as suggested by Ben Azzai who disagrees with Rabbi Akiva’s position that the obligation to love applies to one’s “friend” only, and wishes to expand the concept to include humanity as a whole (‘This is the book of the generations of man’).
This widening of the concept is also the way of Abraham Joshua Heschel who walked arm in arm with Martin Luther King (or as seen in the telegram which he sent to President Kennedy) joining in the African-American struggle for civil rights in America. Broadening the idea of ‘Gemilut Hassadim’ in this way does not only expand the circles of those who can receive Loving Kindness but renders the Sages’ pillar of Loving-Kindness into an aspiration to cure the whole world of injustices (‘Tikkun Olam’). Perhaps as such, the expanded version can be considered a new interpretation of the Three Pillars upon which the world is founded
