Daily Kavanot
Writings of reflection by the Stephen Wise Temple clergy.
Each weekday morning, members of our mailing list receive the “Daily Kavanah,” which includes messages of thought, inspiration, and contemplation from our clergy, along with a schedule of events. Every Thursday, the “Daily Kavanah” turns into “Eyes on Wise,” our weekly newsletter featuring the latest news, photos, videos, stories, and tikkun olam opportunities from our community. Sign up and don’t miss out!
Daily Kavanah – Tuesday, July 7, 2020
Illuminate the welders in shipyards with the brilliance of their torches. Let the crane operator lift up his arm for joy. Let the elevators creak and speak, ascending and descending in awe. Let the mercy of the flower’s direction beckon in the eye. Let the straight flower bespeak its purpose in straightness—to seek the light. Let the crooked flower bespeak its purpose in crookedness—to seek the light. Let the crookedness and the straightness bespeak the light. — Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) In our evening and morning prayers, we twice daily ask God to continue to illuminate our lives with light. As our tradition celebrates God’s creation and the ongoing gift of light in our world, so too did Jewish poet Allen Ginsburg reflect on the gift of light even in the smallest spaces. Today, seek light in places that you may not normally notice it. When we open our eyes fully, [...]
Daily Kavanah – Monday, July 6, 2020
וֶהֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת Receive all people with a pleasant countenance. -Pirkei Avot 1:15 Every morning Adam, Ruby, and I take a walk in our neighborhood. It has become one of those sacred rituals of this time at home, as I imagine it has for many. We keep our physical distance from the neighbors, never getting closer than ten or so feet from other strollers. However, we have become accustomed to—and look forward to!—the “hellos” and the waves we give and receive, which mean so much more now than ever with so little contact outside of our pod. Most mornings we connect with a couple walking their dogs, always wearing their beautifully patterned masks. I’ve grown used to our sweet hellos and short exchanges, even though I can’t see their whole faces. Then one morning, I realized that I didn’t need to see the full faces of [...]
Daily Kavanah – Friday, July 3, 2020
Proclaim freedom for all the sons and daughters And will keep you as the apple of his eye Pleasant is your name and will not be destroyed Repose and rest on the Sabbath day. — Dunash ibn Librat, 10th Century Morocco/Spain Whether you sing it to the Beach Boys, modern Israeli, or an ancient Moroccan melody, Dror Yikra is a beloved Shabbat piyyut, or poem. Dror yikra, the opening words, are a play on the verse from Leviticus, the one inscribed on the Liberty Bell. Far from a political revolution, though, this is a declaration of love for the Divine, proclaimed through Shabbat. Tricia Hersey is the Bishop and founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization which examines rest as a radical tool for community healing. Fundamentally, she teaches about rest as a form of resistance; her work is deeply tied to the work of anti-racism. Using her teachings, my colleague Rabbi Sara Luria offered the following [...]
Daily Kavanah – Thursday, July 2, 2020
Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof. — Leviticus 25:10 In its original context, this verse—and the word for liberty (dror) referred very specifically to the proclamation of the jubilee year. Every 50th year, the Torah teaches, all indentured servants are freed, all debts are forgiven, the land is allowed to rest, and each person returns to his or her ancestral holdings. It is an idealistic vision, a complete rebalancing and redistribution of wealth. Carved on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, the word takes on a new valence, and liberty becomes a motto of a new nation--one dedicated to the truths that we hold “to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” All these years later, we are still looking to define, understand, [...]
Daily Kavanah – Wednesday, July 1, 2020
“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” — Fannie Lou Hamer We’ve seen these words a lot of late, painted on signs carried through the streets of our cities. A call to action, a reminder of the deep inequalities of our society. It is no surprise, then, that civil rights activists throughout history have turned to our shared narrative—the Exodus—for its vision of what freedom looks like: for you, for me, for all of us together. Andrés Spokoiny is an Argentine Jewish activist, now living in New York City and is the President and CEO of the Jewish Funders. Writing about Passover, he wrote: Judaism understood that the key to freedom is a balance between four players: me, my fellow human being, society, and God: a delicate equilibrium between my freedom and yours; between freedom from (the lifting of constraints) and freedom to (the capacity to work towards a goal beyond myself); between freedom as an end in itself [...]