This is classical Hasidic spirituality: it is more likely that people will be able to truly engage in teshuvah if their physical and material needs are first met, and they experience God's love directly. The way of the mochiach, the rebuking preacher, only causes guilt and depression and often impedes teshuvah and transformation. The way of Hasidism is chesed: to treat people with chesed, to live and demonstrate God's chesed, and so make it possible for people to find room in their lives and hearts to try to be better, to turn their lives around.

The teaching from the midrash demonstrates how Abraham became a blessing: one was composed for him in the Amidah, concluding specifically and solely with his name. Of course, it is odd to say, then, that God's Name is not present in the blessing, or that in this manner Abraham takes precedence over God in the second blessing of the Amidah. But, that makes the R. Yudan's claim even more powerful: Abraham - and his quality of chesed - precedes the revival of the dead, which represents teshuvah. It is interesting to see the larger context of the teaching from Berachot 18a/b, then, to see the nexus of the actual dead with the wicked who even in their lifetimes are called "dead".

R. Hiyya and R. Yonatan were once walking about in a cemetery, and the blue fringe of R. Yonatan was trailing on the ground. R. Hiyya said to him: "Lift it up, so that they should not say: 'Tomorrow they are coming to us yet now they are insulting us!'" He said to him: "Do they know so much? Is it not written, 'But the dead know nothing?' (Eccl. 9:5)" He said to him: "If you have read once, you have not repeated; if you have repeated, you have not gone over a third time; if you have gone over a third time, you have not had it explained to you: 'For the living know that they will die' (ibid.): these are the righteous who in their death are called living as it says, 'Benaiah the son of Yehoyada, from Kabze'el, was the son of a brave warrior (ketiv: ben ish chai; keri: ben ish chayil) who had done mighty deeds. He smote the two altars of Moab; he went down and also slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of snow' (II Sam. 23:20). 'The son of a living man (ben ish chai)': are all other people then the sons of dead men? Rather 'the son of a living man' means that even in his death he was called living... 'But the dead know nothing': These are the wicked who in their lifetime are called dead, as it says, 'And you, O wicked prince of Israel, are slain (chalal)' (Ezek. 21:30); or if you prefer, I can derive it from here: 'A person shall be put to death (yumat hamet; lit. "the dead shall be made dead") only on the testimony of two or three witnesses' (Deut. 17:6). But, he is still alive! What it means is: he is already counted as dead".

Not all people who are living can claim to be alive: awake, connected to the truth, devoted to living fully in the face of the divine. It is possible to be dead even in the midst of life. So, we see how the midrash sets of the quality of chesed before teshuvah, establishing the priority of the former over the latter.

As R. Avraham reads the Zohar, this order holds true for Creation as well. The Zohar teaching is based on a baraita in Pesachim 54a:

It was taught: Seven things were created before the world was created, and these are they: The Torah, repentance (teshuvah), the Garden of Eden, Gehenna, the Throne of Glory, the Temple, and the name of the Messiah... Repentance, as Scripture says: "Before the mountains came into being" Ps. 90:2) but then it says, "You return man to dust; yet You said, 'Return you mortals!'" (ibid. vs.3).

The verses from Ps. 90 suggest a sequence of events: before God brought the earth into being God established God's will, desire and intention that people have the capacity and the opportunity to "return". Now, we might think that this means that teshuvah must come before God's blessing can flow. This is inverted by the teaching of Zohar III 69b (which echoes Gen.R. 8:5):

R. Yehudah opened the verse: "A Song of Ascents. From the depths I call to You, YHVH" (Ps. 130:1). We have taught: when the blessed Holy One created the world He desired to create a human being, and sought advice in the Torah. She said to God: "Do you really wish to create this human being? In the future he will sin before You; in the future he will make You angry. If you do for him according his deeds the world will not survive before You, much less this human being". God said to her: "Is it for nothing that I am called 'a compassionate and merciful God, slow to anger'?" And so, before the blessed Holy One created the world, He created teshuvah. God said to her, to Teshuvah: "I wish to create human beings in the world, but it is on condition that when they return to you from their sins that you will be prepared to forgive their sins and provide atonement for them". And, so, in every moment Teshuvah is prepared to receive human beings, and when they return from their sins, Teshuvah returns to the blessed Holy One and He provides atonement for everything. Judgments are covered over and all are made fragrant, and the human being is cleansed of his sins.