God loves those we ignore

Rabbi Shai Held, On Being with Krista Tippett: On Love, and Judaism, 27 Mar 2026: “I think what I feel a lot of despair about these days is that I think the more I try to take in what I believe the Bible is asking of us, the harder it seems to me and the less evidence I see of almost anyone actually taking it to heart. The example of this that I always talk about is that I think kind of the most fundamental teaching in many ways of the Hebrew Bible is that God loves those whom we ignore. God loves widows and orphans and strangers and Egyptian slave women running away from their Israelite taskmasters. God loves them. Or as I told the students in our summer program, in New York City, God has members of God’s own household. They are homeless men who sleep in their own urine in the city. And either you take that seriously or you don’t… God is the God who sees people.” This entire interview left me with a heady mix of both despair and hope, but that final quote especially rocked me.…