DEUT370 Walking in God's Patient Way. Who wouldn't be delighted to deepen their ability to meet life's challenges with more patience? We get very clear support for doing so from the Bible, where it tells us that we should "walk in His ways" [this verse, Deuteronomy 19:9, 26:17]. This simple but forceful idea--sometimes called imitatio dei, emulating God--is the ultimate blueprint for the spiritual life and tells us that we should model our lives on Godly virtues. That's how we move ourselves closer to the highest potential we have from birth, and when we act with heavenly virtue in our personal lives, we help to make this world a little more like heaven. In practical terms, we emulate God by practicing virtue or, as I like to all it, living in "virtuous reality." The sages tell us: "as God is called merciful and gracious, so you be merciful and gracious; as God is called righteous, so be you righteous; as God is called holy, so be you holy" (Sifra 85a). As God is forgiving, so too should we strive to be forgiving. We are guided to emulate God in all the divine attributes of mercy and righteousness, though not the attributes of severity and justice that we can also find in the Torah. Because we want the world to be infused with qualities of goodness, we have a responsibility to become vessels for those same virtues. That prescription includes the trait of patience. No matter how you may conceive of God or the creative force that stands behind the universe, there is no doubt that this ultimate source of life is endowed with patience, especially when compared to us. Think of the pace of earthly eras, creeping along as slowly as glaciers advancing and retreating in an ice age. Stars and galaxies are born, mature, and pass away. And as for us, what the Mussar tradition offers as evidence for God's patience is the fact that our lives are sustained, even when we do wrong (Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, Tomer Devorah [The Palm Tree of Deborah], trans. Rabbi Moshe Miller (Southfield, Mich.: Targum/Feldheim, 1993), 6-8.) It's not hard to imagine a universe where there is absolutely no margin for error, where punishment is instantaneous and total, but that isn't the world we live in. God is patient and preserves our lives even when our actions happen to hit way off the mark, to give us time to come to deeper realizations, make amends, and return to a straighter way. "From this, man should learn to what extent he, too, should be patient and bear the yoke of his fellow" (Ibid, 8). Since God is patient, then we, who are encouraged to guide our lives by "walking in His ways," should also be patient.