La’ner Velivsamim

Laner velivsamim

Nafshi meyachela

Im titnu li kos

Yayin lehavdalah

Solu drachim li

Pnu lin'vucha

Pitchu sh'arim li

Kol malachei malah

Im titnu li kos

Yayin lehavdalah

Einai ani esah

El al b'lev kosef

Mamtzi drachai li

Bayom uvalaila

Im titnu li kos

Yayin lehavdalah

(for the candle and the spices)

My soul longs for a candle and spices if only you'd pour me a cup of wine for havdala All angels up above pave paths for me clear the path for the confused open the gates for me

If you give me a cup of wine for havdala I shall raise my eyes to and fro with a worthy heart who provides my life paths for me by day and night if you give me a cup of wine for havdala

Adon Haselichot (Master of Forgiveness)

Adon haselichot bochen levavot goleh amukot dover tzedakot

Chatanu lefaneicha rachem aleinu.

Hadur benifla'ot vatik benechamot zocher b'rit amo choker kelayot

Chatanu lefaneicha rachem aleinu.

Male zakiyut nora tehino tzone'ach avonot oneh be'etzavot

Chatanu lefaneicha rachem aleinu.

Master of Forgiving examiner of hearts the revealer of depths speaker of justice

We have sinned before You, have mercy upon us Glorious in wonders great in consolations

Ma Navu Alei (How Pleasant)

Ma navu alei heharim raglei / mevaser shalom bevinyan irech

Kol tzofaich yis’u kol rina / hitna’ari mitoch megina

Ayin be’ayin tir’i shechina / veshavu banayich legvulech

Lishvuyim dror beshir u’mizmor / el beit har hamor yehi shvilech

Solu solu et hamsila / pitzchu renana u’tehila

Yavo mevasser bilshono mila / kumi uri ki ba orech

Tze’i mibavel kiryat ovdei bel / kinor vanevel az yehi shirech

Sos yasissu kol avelei zion / lavo lachasot betzel ha’elion

Bano evneh lach neveh apirion / achin kiseh ledavid malkech

Se’ee enayich u’re’ee vanayich / ba’u elayich la’or be’orech

Tachat choshech assim lach ora / az metzion tetzeh hatora

Hineh gadol hu ayom venora / beyom simi keter leroshech

Ad matai kalla yaffa u’me’ulla / lezar be’ulla kedal vahelech

Uri uri adat yisrael achish / eshlach yinon ve’goel

Vegam akim lach chomat ariel / zachor ezkor chessed ne’urech

How pleasant atop the mountains are the footsteps of the messenger / bearing tidings of peace in your city

The voices of your watchmen will rise up in joy / shake off your sorrow

Your eyes shall behold the Shechina / and your sons shall return to your borders Freedom to the captives in song and melody / to the Temple may your path lead Pave the pathway / break forth in delight and glory

Amar Adonay leYaakov

Amar Adonay leYaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov

Bachar Adonay beYaakov / Al tira avdi

Yaakov Ga’al Adonay et Yaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Darach kochav mi Yaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Haba’im yashresh Yaakov /

Al tira avdi Yaakov Veyerd miYaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Zechor eleh leYaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Chedvat yeshuot Yaakov /

Al tira avdi Yaakov Tovu ohalecha Yaakov /

Al tira avdi Yaakov Yoru mishpatecha leYaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov

Ki lo nachash beYaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov

Lo hibit aven beYaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov

Mi mana afar Yaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov

Nishba Adonay leYaakov / Al tira avdi

Yaakov Slach na le’avon Yaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Ata hashev shevut Yaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Padah Adonay el Yaakov /

Al tira avdi Yaakov Tzaveh yeshuot Yaakov /

Al tira avdi Yaakov Kol kol Yaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Roni ve’simchi le Yaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Shav Adonay et shvut

Yaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov Titen emet leYaakov / Al tira avdi Yaakov

God said to Yaakov / Fear not, My servant Yaakov

God chose Yaakov / Fear not, My servant Yaakov

A star will emerge from / Yaakov Fear not, My servant Yaakov In Days to come Yaakov will strike roots / Fear not, My servant Yaakov A ruler will arise from Yaakov / Fear not, My servant Yaakov

MEDITATION: Letting go of the week

We pause for a few moments…

To let go of the week that has passed…

Breathing in…and breathing out… (repeat)

Like every other week, it has been a week of striving..

We each had an agenda of what we wanted to do…

We each had great hopes for the week…

But we didn’t accomplish all our objectives. Although much remains undone, on Shabbat we pause

Breathing in…and breathing out…(repeat)

As Shabbat approaches…

Imagine your agenda drifting to the back of your mind

Let all your strivings float away for a day…

Breathing in…take in the fresh air of Shabbat…

Breathing out…let go of you strivings…

Breathing in…and breathing out…(repeat)

Like every other week, it has been a week of struggle…

At times it seemed that everything was going wrong…

At times it seemed that we went from crises to crisis.

Although much is yet unsettled, on Shabbat we pause…

Breathing in…and breathing out…(repeat)

As Shabbat approaches…

Feel your concerns drift to the back of your mind,

Let your struggles float away for a day…

Breathing in…take in the fresh air of Shabbat…

Breathing out…let go of your struggles…

Breathing in…and breathing out…(repeat)

We let go of the week…as we welcome Shabbat…

We let go of the week…as we welcome Shabbat. Siddur Eit Retzon

Kavvanah For Candle Lighting

The Soul and the Candle

The soul is like a flame surrounded by multiple subtle fields. In a candle, the flame warms the wax which changes state from solid to oil. The Petila (Hebrew word for "wick"), draws the oil to the point of combustion, union, conflagration, passionate transultation.

Davvenen or Tefilla (Hebrew word for prayer made with the same letters as the word for "wick") also serves as a wick to draw you in. Once your frozen life-energies are warmed and liquified by a flame of loving warmth, our prayers serve as a channel to draw you towards the threshold of your vulnerability. Passing through this threshold, you combust, unite, conflagrate, and passionately transmute, resulting in your mind emptying and becoming consciously, experientially, ONE with that with which you are already, mysteriously, united. Rabbi David Wolfe-Blank, Meta-Siddur

Blessed Be These Hands

Blessed by the works of your hands, O Holy One.

Blessed by these hands that have touched life. Blessed by these hands that have nurtured creativity.

Blessed by these hands that have held pain. Blessed by these hands that have embraced with passion.

Blessed by these hands that have tended gardens.

Blessed by these hands that have closed in anger.

Blessed be these hands that have planted new seeds.

Blessed by these hands that have harvested ripe fields.

Blessed by these hands that have cleaned, washed, mopped and scrubbed. Blesses by these hands that have become knotty with age.

Blessed be these hands that are wrinkled and scarred from doing justice.

Blessed be these hands that have reached out and been received.

Blessed be these hands that hold the promise of the future.

Blessed be the works of Your hands, O Holy One. Diann Nell

Oneness

O one and only God, You have made each of us unique And formed us to be united in one family of life. Be with us, Eternal One, as we seek to unite our lives

With Your power and Your love.

We proclaim now Your oneness and our own hope for unity.

We acclaim Your creative power in the universe and in ourselves. The law that binds world to world and heart to heart.

KAVVANAH, Ma’ariv Aravim & Ahavat Olam

Praised are You, our God, Who arranges the seasons and the stars, Who restores day and night, And who has brought on the evening twilight. When we meditate on this universe Which You create a new day after day, We are filled with wonder and awe.

We see ourselves as tiny specks in a vast universe,

And we are filled with fear.

Sabbath Prayer

God, help us now to make this new Shabbat. After noise, we seek quiet; After crowds of indifferent strangers, We seek to touch those we love; After concentration on work and responsibility, We seek freedom to meditate, to listen to our inward selves.

We open our eyes to the hidden beauties

And the infinite possibilities in the world You are creating; We break open the gates of the reservoirs Of goodness and kindness in ourselves and in others We reach toward one holy moment of Shabbat.

You seem too busy to be concerned with our lives,

And we feel alone.

We see the difference

Between ourselves as we are and as we might be,

Between ourselves as we are and as we would like to be,

And we feel inadequate and powerless.

But You, God, You understand what we feel You know how our souls can be released from their bonds, and so,

Through Your great love for Your people, You have given us a precious gift, the Torah. When we study Your Torah

And observe its commandments, We find that, small though we are,

We are more important in Your plan Than the mightiest star; And we find that, far away though You seem, In reality You are no farther away Than our own hearts;

And we find that, powerless though we feel, With You we gain strength. We will therefore study Your Torah And grasp the way of life that it offers us At every possible opportunity. We will always rejoice

Over the words of Your Torah And the fulfillment of Your commandments… …for they are our very lives, And they add a new dimension to our days; So we will tirelessly try to understand And live by them.

Through them we always have access to Your love.

Blessed are You, Adonai, Loving Your people Israel. Siddur Eit

Ratzon

You Remember Us

Eternally, with love, You remember us, Adonai. Hatred is a human, graven thing. But You are love; before You all hatreds die. We have doubted our power to love, surrendering

To idols, tyrants, bigots, but You have taught The laws of justice; You have taught us, hallowing The rising up of morning, to recall the mitzvoth

Of love, which are our life and the length of our days, And to lie down recalling them at night. You sustain the living with kindness, and You raise The fallen; Source of all creation, let Your love never depart from us; we praise The oneness of god in ages past and yet To come, the love that has saved us, and does not forget.

Connection

In the beginning God rebelled against solitary existence With Creation of stunning variety Which, ancient words say, Was Divine reflection. We are meant to be different. We are meant for connection. Love me, says God, And love each other.

Remember: oneness does not mean same. So listen, Israel, To what you know best: In the beginning, there is God; At the end, there is God; And in between, there is us –With God

And that first breath Joins us forever.

Hashkivenu Reflections

Hashkeveinu pertains to retiring for the night and the need for divine protection. It stems from Babylonia, the center of Jewish life during the Talmudic period, when the nights were especially frightening. Criminals roamed and violence was prevalent. The prayer remains relevant today, when danger may come from halfway around the world or from around the corner. Although Hashkeveinu is recited every day of the week, its concluding words are changed on Shabbat to emphasize sukkat sh’lomecha, “the shelter of Your peace.” This reminds us that Jews in Babylonia did not work in the unprotected fields on Shabbat, but spent the day in the relative safety of their own homes and neighborhoods. Sukkat sh’lomecha has developed a spiritual significance as well, referring to the peace and rest that is characteristic of Shabbat. In addition, the words v’al kol ha’olam, “and over the entire world,” have been added in order to universalize prayers for peace.

Nightfall

Let there be love and understanding among us; let peace and friendship be our shelter from life’s storms. Eternal God, help us to walk with good companions, to live with hope in our hearts and eternity in our thoughts, that we may lie down in peace and rise up to find our hearts waiting to do Your will. Blessed it the Eternal One, Guardian of Israel, whose love gives light to all the world.

Revelation And The Inward Journey

The human-divine encounter is more like the breaking down of a wall than like the building of a bridge. It is a discovery that there is no chasm, rather than a claim that the gap can be traversed. Finally, it is the realization that the wall itself was illusory, and the sense of separation lay only in our own unreadiness to know the deeper truth. …Every human journey contains within it something of Moses’ trek up that mountainside; every human attempt at making meaning, at understanding the purpose of human existence, at rejecting cynicism in quest of truth, has something of Sinai within it. Whenever we assert - by deed as well as by word - that life is not absurd, that accident and emptiness are not our only lot, we are climbing up God’s mountain. Believe as we may that it is we who are making for life’s meaning, we who are retrieving human dignity from the abyss of chaos, the religious mind sees such activity as response rather than as human creativity alone. We give meaning all its forms, but the need to do so is an act of responding to the Divine image cast into our deepest human selves. We perform the act of naming, calling the Divine by the names chosen by our tradition. But that need to name exists in us because we are called upon to do so by the One within.

Arthur Green

Sinai And Community

Somewhere in the course of living in community, we come to see that the journey is not an isolated one anymore. As we build our own individual families in a communal context, or as we share in the broader “family” of community itself, we find that we have come home from the long wandering that so characterizes our contemporary society, home to our ancestors (whether biological or adopted), home to the Jewish people. Ultimately, we begin to see this process of odyssey and return as something more than individual, as belonging to the history of Jews in our day, so many of whom are seeking ways to reclaim our tradition. The decision to find our way as Jews, rather than to turn to the many other life paths that stretch before us in this age of seemingly limitless choices, turns out to be our response to a Jewish voice that speaks from deep within us. Our homecoming is also a return to Sinai.

Arthur Green

We See Nothing

The world is full of wonders and miracles, But we take our little hands and we cover our eyes and see nothing.

Baal Shem Tov

Our Task

God is hiding in the world. Our task is to let the Divine emerge from our deeds.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Blessing Of Rest

May we lie down this night in peace and rise up to life renewed. May night spread over us the shelter of peace, of quiet and calm, the blessing of rest. There will come a time when morning will bring no word of war or famine or anguish; there will come a day of happiness, of contentment, of peace. Praised by the Source of joy within us, for the night and its rest, for the promise of peace.

Proximity To The Sacred

The Torah

The Torah is eternal, but its explanation is to be made by the spiritual leaders of Judaism…in accordance with the age. Baal Shem Tov

Meditation On The Barchu

A flame in the sky flaunts the remains of a tired sun. Darkness encroaches marking a long day’s end. Yet I know that this final moment is a beginning.

The farewell call on a noisy world of care and travail,

To enter a sphere of hope and prayer and peace. I will suspend my soul in God’s eternity, I am about to cross Your holy bridge in time.

V’Taher Libenu Siddur

The Beginning And End Of Torah

Meditation On The Amida

A bond unseen holds me

To my congregation.

Their voices one with mine

Have sung Your praises

In prayer and in psalm.

Now comes the time

When I speak to You alone.

The bond is momentarily broken.

I have been one of many…

Now I seek You alone.

Now I alone try to address You.

Shall I sing or shout?

Shall I be silent?

Hush

Heschel

Life passes on in proximity to the sacred, and it is this proximity that endows existence with ultimate significance. In our relation to the immediate we touch upon the most distant. Even the satisfaction of physical needs can be a sacred act. Perhaps the essential message of Judaism is that in doing the finite we may perceive the infinite. Abraham Joshua

Rabbi Simlai taught: Torah begins with an act of lovingkindness and ends with an act of lovingkindness. It begins with an act of lovingkindness, for it is written: “And the Eternal God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skin. and clothed them:” and it ends with an act of lovingkindness for it is written, ”And God buried him in the valley.” Talmud, Sota 14a

Seeded In Sinai

From the seeds engendered in me

With the shattering of Tablets

At the foot of Sinai

Comes my flowering.

Who can tell

Will my heart speak in silence? V’Taher Libenu

Where seed from these blossoms, Dried by nurturing sun and blown

By winds alive with memory

Will find its place. Shulamis Yelin

KAVVANAH FOR MI CHAMOCHA: WHAT THE EXODUS TAUGHT

So pharaonic oppression, deliverance, Sinai, and Canaan are still with us, powerful memories shaping our perceptions of the political world. The “door of hope” is still open; things are not what they might be - even when what they might be isn’t totally different from what they are…We still believe, or many of us do, what the Exodus first taught, or what it has commonly been taken to teach, about the meaning and possibility of politics and about its proper form:

- First, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt

- Second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land;

- And third, that “the way to the land is through the wilderness.” There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.

Michael Walzer

The Redemptive Task

Our commitment to the redeeming deed applies, in the first place, to life within the human community. We take it as our task to enhance each person’s potential for realizing the Divine image, remembering that each of us bears a portrait unique and vital to the wholeness of Y-H-W-H. But how clear can that portrait be when its bearer is suffering from hunger? Or from political oppression? Or from domestic bondage? Or when the person is hurting self and others, due to a compulsion from which it seems impossible to break free? If we are going to enhance the Divine image in this world, we must work to maximize human freedom, always remembering that it was only after we came out of bondage that we were able to look toward God’s mountain. That commitment to freedom also includes helping people to create the sorts of lives and social structures to allow that freedom a lasting and secure home. Our Judaism lives in those two essential moments when we discover God. We celebrate (and guard) our freedom, knowing YH-W-H at the Sea, and we build a community that lives in God’s presence, knowing Y-H-W-H at the mountain. Our role is to share these twin values with others to help other parts of the human family, each in the way of its own traditions, to achieve both freedom and responsible community.

Clapping And Dancing

Dear God, stir my heart with the spirit of joy. Imbue my arms and my legs with that spirit; for my arms are encumbered and my legs have become heavy with my wrongdoings. Fill me, my God, with the cleansing spirit of holy joy. Enliven all my limbs. Help me raise my hands and clap. Help me lift my feet and dance, dance, dance.

Nachman of Bratzlav

The Messiah

Rabbi Joshua came upon the prophet Elijah as he was standing at the entrance of Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai’s cave. He asked him: “When is the Messiah coming?”

Elijah replied: “Go and ask him yourself.”

“Where shall I find him?”

“Before the gates of Rome.”

“By what sign shall I know him?”

“He is sitting among poor people covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at once, and then bind them up again. But he unbinds one wound at a time, and then binds it up again straightaway. He tells himself: ‘Perhaps I shall be needed (to appear as the Messiah) - and I must not take time and be late!’”

So Rabbi Joshua went and found him and said: “Peace be with you, my master and teacher!”

He answered him: “Peace be with you, son of Levi.”

Then he asked him: “When are you coming, master?”

He answered him: “Today!”

Thereupon Rabbi Joshua returned to Elijah and said to him: “He has deceived me, he has indeed deceived me! He told me, ‘Today I am coming!’ but he has not come.”

Elijah said to him: “This is what he told you, ‘Today - if you would only hear his voice’”

(Psalm 95:7).Tal. Sanhedrin 98a

When The Messiah Comes

Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai used to say: “If you are about to plant a tree when they say to you: ‘Behold the Messiah!’ - go and plant your tree, and afterwards go out to greet him.”

Avot De-Rabbi Natan

The Very Last Day

The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last. Franz Kafka

Connections

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.

You cannot tell always by looking at what is happening.

More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.

Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.

Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.

Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.

Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.

Live a life you can endure; make love that is loving.

Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,

A thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us

Interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen: Reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in. This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,

For every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

Marge Piercy

The New Moon

If God were the sun, then Israel might be the moon, Her face reflecting God’s eternal light. Yes, Israel is like the moon, the moon

Who waxes and wanes, Grows old, and then renews herself, Yet never leaves the skies.

Faithfully, she reappears to walk the night, Glimmering, silver, in the darkened sky, Faithfully, she spreads her pale and ghostly light

On every room and tree and blade of grass

Until the whole world turns to silver,

Transformed from darkness to shimmering beauty. Yes, Israel, be like the moon, Renew your faith each generation. Even when the earth casts its shadow of darkness, faithfully reflect the light of God

To the Bird (excerpts) – H.N. Bialik

Greetings! Peace to you, returning Lovely bird, unto my window

From a warmer clime!

How my soul for songs was yearning When my dwelling you deserted In the wintertime.

…Do you bring me friendly greetings

From my brothers there in Zion, Brothers far yet near?

O the happy! O the blessed! Do they guess what heavy sorrows I must suffer here?

Do my brothers know and could they picture How many rise against me, How their hatred swells?

Singing, singing O my birdling, Sing of the wonders of the land where Spring forever dwells

First a Spark

First a spark then candle glow. I watched you at sunset time eyes sparkling in Shabbat light. Circling above the flames, my hands pulled the warmth of Shabbat peace inside. Praying for a good week and for blessing. Take time – the light beckon for dreams and wonder, for the candles grow smaller, the children taller, even as we pray.

Pour over the whole world the moonlight beauty of holiness. Ruth Brin

Pine – by Leah Goldberg

Here I will never hear the cuckoo's call. Here trees will never wear the shtreimel of snow. Yet here in the pine's shade I can hear all My childhood, brought to life from long ago.

The needles chiming: Once upon a time "Home" was my word for distant snow, not sand,

And the brook-fettering ice- a greenish rime Of my song's language in a foreign land.

Perhaps the voyaging birds alone who find Their own route hanging between the sky and earth, Know how I pine between two lands of birth.

In you I was transplanted, O my pine. In you I branched into myself and grew Where disparate landscapes split one root in two.

Hold this sunset moment and let it go into morning light. Another generation’s candlesticks receive the next generation’s lights. And somewhere in the middle we stand, holding hands with yesterday and tomorrow linking echoes of ancient melodies with the breath of our children. Finding God and hope in their embrace, renewing days of creation. In ordinary time – remember –First a spark and then candle glow. Sandy Eisenberg Sasso

Yardah Hashabbat

Yarda Hashabat el bikat Ginosar

Venichoach atik beshuleha

Veya’amdu misaviv hararim shoshbinim

Laset adarta hazohevet

Ta’alena yonim mikineret hayam

Kabel et rucha halohevet

Nashka hashabat lerosho shel habrosh

La’ezov shebasela nashka

Veyehi hadardar lesharvit shelmalchut

Al ramot demama meronenet

Yimshoch az hator bekolo hamatok

Chemdat kisufin me’adenet.

Hertita shabat bechina haganuz

Einei chalonot mikol ever

Vetetzena banot el ha'erev, zamer

Zmirot be’erga metzaltzelet

Vehayta ha’edna bebikat Ginosar

Lenishmat ivriyut ne’etzelet

Shabbat descends on Ginosar Valley

An ancient fragrance at the edges

The mountains stand around like best friends

To carry her golden overcoat

Doves arise from the Kinneret Sea

To receive her ardent spirit

Shabbat kisses the top of the cypress

Kisses the moss on the rock

The thorn becomes a royal scepter

On the hills the silence is chanting

The turtle dove is making a sweet sound

Delightful pleasing longing.

Shabbat trembles in her modest grace

Eyes of windows from all over

Young girls come out in the evening

To sing songs with a resounding yearning

The tenderness in Ginosar Valley became

A noble Hebrew soul.

Jerusalem Ecology

The air above Jerusalem is filled with prayers and dreams

Like the air above cities with heavy industry. Hard to breathe.

From time to time a new shipment of history arrives And the buildings and towers are packing material, later discarded and piled up.

Sometimes candles arrive instead of people, Then it's quiet. And sometimes people instead of candles

Then a commotion.

And in closed gardens, among jasmine bushes; Filled with fragrance, foreign consulates, Like bad brides, jilted, Waiting for their time.

She's always arriving, always sailing. And the gates and the docks and the policemen and the flags and the high masts of churches and mosques and the chimneys of synagogues and the boats of praise and the waves of mountains.

The voice of the ram's horn is heard: still another sailed.

Day of Atonement sailors in white uniforms

Climb among the ladders and ropes of tested prayers.

And the trade and the gates and the gold domes: Jerusalem is the Venice of God.

Yehuda Amichai

They come here to visit the mourners. They squat at the holocaust memorial They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall, And they laugh behind heavy curtains in their hotels.

They have pictures taken

Together with our famous dead

At Rachel's Tomb and at Herzl's Tomb And on the top of Ammunition Hill. They weep over our sweet boys, And lust over our tough girls, And hang up their underwear

To dry quickly in cool blue bathrooms.

Tourists

Once I sat on the steps at the gate of David's Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head, there's an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head." But he’s moving, he’s moving!' I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them: You see that arch over there from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.

Yehuda Amichai

The Diameter of the Bomb

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters. And in it four dead and eleven wounded. And around them in a greater circle of pain and time are scattered two hospitals and one cemetery. But the young woman who was buried where she came from over a hundred kilometers away enlarges the circle greatly. And the lone man who weeps over her death in a far corner of a distant country includes the whole world in the circle. And I won't speak at all about the crying of orphans that reaches to the seat of God and from there onward, making the circle without end and without God.

Yehuda Amichai

Jerusalem: Earthly or Heavenly?

July, 1967… I have discovered a new land. Israel is not the same as before… Jerusalem is everywhere, she hovers over the whole country. There is a new radiance, a new awe… My astonishment is mixed with anxiety. Am I worthy? Am I able to appreciate the marvel?… In Jerusalem past is present, and heaven is almost here. For an instant, I am near to Hillel, who is close by. All of our history is within reach. Jerusalem is a witness, an echo of eternity… Jerusalem was stopped in the middle of her speech. She is a voice interrupted. Let Jerusalem speak again to our people, to all people… This is a city never indifferent to the sky. The evenings often feel like Kol Nidre nights… The Sabbath finds it hard to go away

Abraham Joshua Heschel (July, 1967)

RECOGNIZING LIFE’S MIRACLES

Open my eyes, O God, to the marvels that surround me. Show me the wonder of each breath I take, of my every thought, word and movement. Let me experience the miracles of the world I witnessever mindful and always appreciative of all that You have made.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I meanthe one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Hal’lu: Praise

(R.Nahman of Bratzlav)

Praise the world- praise its fullness and its longing, its beauty and its grief. Praise stone and fire, lilac and river, and the solitary bird at the window. Praise the moment when the whole bursts through pain And the moment when the whole bursts forth in joy. Praise the dying beauty with all your breath and, praising, see the beauty of the world is your own.

Marcia Falk

Before the World Intruded

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

Return me to those infant years, before I woke from sleep, when ideas were oceans crashing, my dreams blank shores of sand. Transport me fast to who I was when breath was fresh as sight, my new parts unfragmented shielded faith from unkind light. Draw for me a figure whole, so different from who I am. Show me now this picture: who I was when I began.

Michele Rosenthal

Meditations For Elul

God, help me through the days of Elul to prepare myself for the New Year with its promise of new life for my body and my soul.

Help me face questions I wish to avoid!

Help me accept truths that do not comfort!

I wish to journey to the light, but the path to it is hidden by all the promises I never kept, by the goodness I deserted.

May the words from the past show me the way of return.

I begin the road of repentance. Meet me, God, as I journey on it.

TESHUVAH AS ENDING SELF-EXILE

There are three types of exile and they are of increasing severity. The first is when Jews are in exile among other nations. The second is when Jews are in exile among other Jews. The third and most severe is when a Jew is alien to him/herself, for then s/he is both captor and captive, in exile within him/herself. Rabbi Sholom ben Elazar Rokeah of Belz

The Ways Of Life

A man had been wandering about in a forest for several days, not knowing which was the right way out. Suddenly he saw a man approaching him. His heart was filled with joy. “Now I shall certainly find out which is the right way,” he thought to himself. When they neared one another, he asked the man, “Brother, I do not know the way out either. For I too have been wandering about here for many, many days. But this I can tell you: do not take the way I have been taking, for that will lead you astray. And now let us look for a new way out together.” Our master added: “So it is with us. One thing I can tell you: the way we have been following this far we ought follow no further, for that way leads one astray. But now let us look for a new way.”

Before a Wedding

Watch over us, God. Quiet our fears. Be with us on this day and on all the days to follow. Protect us, God, from all harm. Fill our home with Your light. Fill our hearts with Your love. Remind us never to take each other for granted. Guide us, God, to create a life together filled with respect, loyalty, kindness and laughter. Bless us, God, with health and happiness and peace. Amen.

Talking to God, by Rabbi Naomi Levy

A prayer for the strength to realize our dreams

You have blessed me with many gifts, God, but I know it is my task to realize them. May I never underestimate my potential, may I never lose hope. May I find the strength to strive for better, the courage to be different, the energy to give all that I have to offer. Amen. Rabbi Naomi Levy

The last word has not been spoken, the last sentence has not been written, the final verdict is not in. It is never too late to change my mind, my direction, to say no to the past and yes to the future,

It Is Never Too Late

to offer remorse, to ask and give forgiveness. It is never too late to start over again, to feel again to love again to hope again… Rabbi Harold Schulweis

READING FOR MOTHER’S DAY

Hearing the approaching step of his mother, Rabbi Joseph would say: “I must stand up, for the Glory of God enters.”

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.

According to Jewish law, the life of the mother is paramount, even taking precedence over the life of her unborn child.

One Rabbi said, “Honor your mother at heart, in speech and by action.”

A loving mother is God’s deputy on earth.

A mother understands what her child does not say.

A Yiddish proverb states, “There is no bad mother and no good death.”

One mother achieves more than a hundred teachers.

In 1844 the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine wrote the following, describing how his mother received him after an absence of 13 years:

“My boy! It’s all of 13 years! Let me look at you, are you fatter or thinner? Thirteen years: You must be hungry for sure! Now, what would you like for dinner?

Rabbi Tarfon used to help his mother get into bed by bending down and allowing her to use his back as a step ladder.

Nowadays, most children prefer to tell their mothers to get off their backs.

“You cannot imagine the respect I felt for my mother,” wrote a Jew who lived in a European Shtetl a century ago. “There is a Jewish expression for it: Derech Eretz. It does not mean fear. If it were fear, then the respect would be asked of the child, and my parents never asked for anything.

So here’s to the woman who never asks for anything. Here’s to mother, the bearer of life.

And here’s to Anna Jarvis, who in 1907 campaigned for a national day to honor Mothers. It is said that she was at odds with her mother at the time. Ah, the power of maternal guilt… Rabbi Joshua Hammerman