DEUT603 Our instincts for self-preservation run deep, as do our anxieties about having enough for ourselves, and so our hearts need to be trained to do chesed, in order that our lives reflect our higher selves more than our lower. The rabbis understood our resistance and so offer as practical guidance on how to do acts of chesed. They took as their starting point the biblical instruction to "Walk after the Eternal your God" [this verse]. ... When we imitate God's great traits in our own life, this doesn't make us more divine, it just elevates who we already are to the highest potential. Although the Torah tells us that we are made in the image God, some rabbis see this not as a statement of our present condition but of our potential.