GEN1582 If man occupies himself with the study of Torah and acts of kindness and so awakens the Divine attributes of mercy, then when he is, God forbid, in trouble, the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, will hear his case and extended His chesed to him. So the person will surely be saved. It is otherwise when a person has been exclusively preoccupied with Torah study, and he did not devote himself sufficiently to acts of chesed. Then the Heavenly chesed is correspondingly not aroused on his behalf. So if he afterwards suffers distress, God forbid, and he is, at the same time, arraigned in Heaven, then he will not succeed in entirely preventing the forces of justice exercising power over him. This is the meaning of Chazal's assertion: "He who only occupies himself with Torah study and not with kindness is as if he has no God." He is like one who has no God to shield him by His Divine Mercies and chesed from the forces of justice, because he had cast those holy virtues behind him. A similar idea is expressed in Bava Kamma (17a), according to one version: "Whoever occupies himself with Torah and acts of chesed, his enemies shall fall before him, as his written of Joseph (Deuteronomy 33:17): 'He shall gore the people, all of them, even to the ends of the earth.' He acquires intuitive understanding like the children of Issachar, (1 Chr. 12:32): 'And the children of Issachar had understanding of the times…'" Through the merit of Torah study one requires understanding like the children of Issachar, whose occupation was Torah and thereby they acquired understanding; through his acts of chesed one causes his enemies to fall before him, as Joseph did because he engaged in acts of kindness in very great measure.  He supplied food to many lands during the famine, and in particular to his father Jacob’s family.  Also, he took care of his father’s funeral, and this too is deemed chesed by Scripture [this verse]. … one should appreciate this greatness of the virtue of chesed; one should cling to it, as so be rescued from distress both in this world and the next.  AHAVH 92-3