Kavanot 2024
Inspiration and Preparation for the High Holy Days
Welcome to our Kavanot Series. Here we share weekly intentions in the month of Elul to spiritually prepare and inspire ourselves leading up to the High Holy Days. Click below to listen!
Kavanot | Week 4
Kavanah | September 25, 2024 | 22 Elul 5784
Mahzor Mention
A phrase pointing us toward personal and spiritual readiness to enter into Days of Awe.
היום הרת עולם, היום יעמיד במשפט
Hayom harat olam, hayom ya’amid b’mishpat.
“Today the world stands as at birth. Today all creation is called to judgment.”
We re-create the worlds of our experience by raising ourselves up to imagine rather than despair, to hope not to worry, to reach for more not settle for less. This is our greatest challenge and need. After we sound the ram’s horn, the shofar, we declare our redemption. HaYom harat olam! Today our world is created anew!
Life is a gift. We are born. We may give birth and enable the lives of others, but we each receive our own life through no effort of our own. Life is the most precious gift any one of us ever receives, followed only by the gift of love others give us if we are so fortunate. HaYom Harat Olam. On Rosh HaShanah we celebrate the miracle and renewal of life, the world’s and our own.
Life is also sweet, and potentially good. The apples we dip into honey symbolize the continuous mahzor, cycle of experience, day to day, year to year. Life is sweet in the wonder of all that exists, in the beauty of all that is, and in the challenges we face to make our days and our world good.
Life is not always easy. In fact, it can be very difficult. Yet even a hard life contains a few simple moments of kindness, help, and pleasure. Life is sweet and can be made good.
One popular Rosh HaShanah custom is to eat apples and honey to taste the sweetness we hope to experience in the New Year. Right after reciting Ha-Motzi and eating bread, we dip a slice of apple into honey and then, before eating it, say:
יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶיךָ ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁתְּחַדֵּשׁ עָלֵינוּ שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה
Y’hi ratzon mi-l’fanekha adonai eloheinu veilohei avoteinu [v’immoteinu] she-t’ḥaddeish aleinu shanah tovah um’tukah.
May it be Your will, Eternal our God and God of our ancestors, to grant us a good and sweet new year.
Kavanot | Week 3
Kavanah | September 18, 2024 | 15 Elul 5784
Mahzor Mention
A phrase pointing us toward personal and spiritual readiness to enter into Days of Awe.
אשרי העם ידעי תרועה ה׳ באור פניך יהלכון
Ashrei haAm yodei teruah Adonai b’or panekha ye’halei-khun
“Joyous are the people who experience the call of the shofar; Eternal God they walk by the light of your presence.”
The Torah describes Rosh HaShanah as the day on which the shofar is sounded. Initially, the call of the shofar was a warning or announcement. Today, we hear in the shofar a call for us to return to God, to do teshuvah, and to pay heed to our lives and our deeds. We pray the sound of the shofar penetrate our souls and summon us to a life of responsibility and blessing.
The sound of the Shofar calls us to this task of being good and seeking goodness. The call of the Shofar is a demand. Life demands much of us. God demands much of us. We demand much of each other, and of ourselves. It is only with great expectations that incredible things are possible. Hear the shofar and urge yourself to settle for no less than your very best.
Jewish lore imagines God and Abraham in conversation just as Abraham looks up and sees a ram stuck in the bushes nearby to replace his son Isaac whom he has infamously bound on a sacrificial altar. “The Holy One, blessed be God, said to Abraham, ‘In the future your descendants will also be entangled in troubles and they too will be redeemed by the horn of a ram.’”
Though so much may disturb and distress us in the worlds of our nation, our people, and nature, or upset and challenge us in the worlds of our personal lives, families, and friends, all of which matters and none of which we dismiss or disregard, on Rosh HaShanah when we symbolically mark the world’s re-creation it is the awesome gift and wonder of our lives, the profound and meaningful purposes of our days that must inspire us.
Kavanot | Week 2
Kavanah | September 11, 2024 | 8 Elul 5784
Mahzor Mention
A phrase pointing us toward personal and spiritual readiness to enter into Days of Awe.
מסוד חכמים ונבונים ומלמד דעת מבינים אפתחה פי בתפילה ובתחנונים
Mi-sod haHamim u’nevonim u’mi-lemed da’at mevinim eftehah pi b’tefillah u’v-tahanunim
“Inspired by the insight of sages and the teachings of those who acquired wisdom, I open my lips in prayer and supplication.”
Living inspired lives means living with personal resolve. Easier said than done, as we all understand. We begin by paying attention to the people who represent the decency and honesty we value instead of those whose noise and news diverts our attention from what’s right to what’s wrong. We consciously speak honestly ourselves and act with personal integrity. As a goal in this New Year, we won’t settle for less than the highest possible demonstration of our personal character and values.
As our children and grandchildren grow, as we ourselves continue to age and engage, as we put ourselves out into the world every New Year and each new day, we hope and pray that people are decent and kind, honest and good.
The families who suffered the incomprehensible loss of loved ones on September 11, 2001, as well as our entire nation, today observe the 23rd anniversary of that fateful date. All of us remember with deep emotion.
We apply Jewish vocabulary to the commemorations of 9/11 because the words impart meaning and significance. That first horrible week twenty-three years ago was America’s Shiva. Every year since, an American Yahrzeit.
Now marking the twenty-three years since September 11, 2001, we know we never can lose sight of our best principles, nor abandon our ideals. We live as we choose, and as we must. Time is precious precisely because we never can know what it will bring us. We all know how true that is, even more today than twenty-three years ago.
On this sacred anniversary, as we prepare for a new Jewish year, we challenge ourselves to remember this call. We remind ourselves to cherish the promise and potential of justice and goodness. We remember to take responsibility for one another. We help our children to know a safer, saner world.
How do we mark this 23rd anniversary of 9/11? By being kind. Those who attacked us wanted to demean our values and demoralize us. They didn’t. They can’t. Act with kindness toward others. Demonstrate your respect for all whom you meet. Share your caring, your compassion, and your goodness. This is our purpose and our dignity. Be kind on this anniversary and every next day in the coming New year.
Kavanot | Week 1
Kavanah | September 4, 2024 | 1 Elul 5784
Mahzor Mention
A phrase pointing us toward personal and spiritual readiness to enter into Days of Awe.
אור עולם באוצר חיים
Or olam b’otzar hayim
“Eternal light is found in the treasury of life.”
The very first words of Torah speak of the dark of night as it gives way to dawn’s light. It is always from out of darkness that light is born. When Genesis speaks that in the beginning there was darkness and chaos, God’s words “Let there be light” bring hope and promise for every next day.
The Jewish calendar begins each day and every New Year in the darkness of the previous night, after the sun has set, so that every morning we can experience a new awakening, a new opportunity, the on-going creation of the world. Each day the rays of God’s presence shine through the darkness and bring us love, hope, and life.
Light is a symbol of life. On Shabbat it is the light of creation. On Hanukkah it is the light of God’s presence in our lives. On other festivals light reflects our joy and delight. When we remember loved ones, light represents their souls and our memories. As the Biblical Book of Proverbs suggests, “The soul of a human being is the light of the Eternal God.”
In Jewish tradition, light is also a metaphor for Torah and Jewish wisdom passed down through the generations. Proverbs also states, “A mitzvah is a candle and Torah is light.” Light signifies our Jewish beliefs and traditions, our ritual and ethical behaviors. Through who we are and what we do, we strive to bring light where it is dark.
Light is among our most powerful religious symbols. In the meanings of our lights are the meanings of our lives. The wax or oil and the wicks that burn are all consumed and fade away. But we can transfer the light from one candle to another. The light of our spirits and dreams, the light of our beings and ideas never need to go out. We can pass them along one person to another.
Our heritage and our history call us to bring light into a deeply dark world. To seek for all people life and goodness, justice and freedom, dignity and peace. In the New Year we want to see the world made right.
The Prophet Isaiah tells the exiled Israelites of 6th century Babylonia of the futility of evil aggression. “Less than nothing shall be those who battle you in war.” About Israel, some verses later, Isaiah declares Jewish national purpose, to be “a light of nations.”
Approaching a New Year, we dedicate ourselves to the light of hope overtaking darkness. We dedicate ourselves to the light of love replacing hate. We dedicate ourselves to the light of goodness triumphing over evil. We dedicate ourselves to the light of peace for our people in Israel and for all people everywhere.
We are the ones who create that light to make a dark world bright. The light of our lives can ignite sparks of holiness and gratitude. Compassionately, for the people of Israel, for the hostages still captive, and for all the innocent who suffer, we pray that this year God’s light of peace and goodness shine again and for all time.