Chasidut for Exodus 34:5
וַיֵּ֤רֶד יְהוָה֙ בֶּֽעָנָ֔ן וַיִּתְיַצֵּ֥ב עִמּ֖וֹ שָׁ֑ם וַיִּקְרָ֥א בְשֵׁ֖ם יְהוָֽה׃
And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
Kedushat Levi
Exodus 20,5. “Who, while remembering the guilt of the fathers to the children if the children continue to hate Him, while at the same time showering thousands of generations of those who have loved Him with His loving kindness.” The essence of these words is that on the one hand, by exacting retribution for sins G’d minimizes the impact of these sins, i.e. the residue of the guilt.
The word פקד, in the sense of diminishing, is familiar to us already from Samuel I 20,25 when on the occasion of the festive meal on the New Moon David’s chair was vacant, and the King remarked on this as something lacking. The opposite is the case when people are rewarded for meritorious deeds by G’d. Paying them a reward does not detract from the good deeds they had performed, so that they should consider themselves as having been “paid off,” but, on the contrary, is a stimulus to such people adding more meritorious deeds in the future. This idea is expressed by the words עשוה חסד, i.e. G’d does not only “repay” the just and the pious, but He adds a “bonus.,” known as חסד.
The word פקד, in the sense of diminishing, is familiar to us already from Samuel I 20,25 when on the occasion of the festive meal on the New Moon David’s chair was vacant, and the King remarked on this as something lacking. The opposite is the case when people are rewarded for meritorious deeds by G’d. Paying them a reward does not detract from the good deeds they had performed, so that they should consider themselves as having been “paid off,” but, on the contrary, is a stimulus to such people adding more meritorious deeds in the future. This idea is expressed by the words עשוה חסד, i.e. G’d does not only “repay” the just and the pious, but He adds a “bonus.,” known as חסד.
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