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 – Friday, December 15, 2023
Last week my mentor, friend, and Rabbi, David Ellenson, died suddenly. He was an extraordinarily gifted scholar and teacher who touched my life and the lives of countless colleagues and friends in profound and varied ways. I first had the privilege of studying with him in the spring of 1995 as a student in his “Modern Jewish Thought” class at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles. He taught me about the important contributions of philosophers and thinkers like Baruch Spinoza, Martin Buber, and Judith Plaskow. I studied responsa literature with him the following year in an intimate seminar held in his living room. After I was ordained a rabbi, I had the honor to host him as a scholar-in-residence at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills. I studied with him dozens of times at rabbinic conferences all over America and Israel. Later, I worked for him for three years as the director [...]
Daily Kavanah – Thursday, December 14, 2023
Tonight, we light the eighth candle of Hanukkah. One week ago, as we prepared to light the Hanukkah lights, the Jewish world — and my own — grew noticeably darker with the death of Rabbi David Ellenson, z”l. In his memory, I share this Hanukkah teaching that he offered in 2018. Writing of a trip he took to El Salvador with the American Jewish World Service, he reflected on the universal and particular messages of Hanukkah. He writes: The late Rabbi Hayim David Halevi (1924-1998), former Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, highlights these dual values in his ‘Aseh l’kha rav.’ While he acknowledges the importance of the particular Chanukah story — the victory of the Hasmonean family over its Syrian oppressors — he also points to a more universal theme — the miracle of the cruse of oil — that expresses universalistic hopes and aspirations. As Rabbi Halevi states, this miracle signals the “renewal of worship in the [...]
Daily Kavanah – Wedensday, December 13, 2023
Tonight we light the seventh candle of Hanukkah. I think that my love for "Les Miserables" is well-known at this point, and now I have passed it along to my son. And, if you ask him to name his favorite song from the show, he will tell you without hesitation that it is the finale, where (spoiler alert) Jean Valjean dies in his daughter’s arms. As he is dying, the spirits of his past life — those he helped, those alongside whom he stood and fought, those he saved — come forward singing the final version of the anthem: "Do You Hear the People Sing." Do you hear the people sing Lost in the valley of the night? It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light… For the wretched of the earth there is a flame that never dies. Even the darkest night will [...]
Daily Kavanah – Tuesday, December 12, 2023
Tonight we light the sixth candle of Hanukkah. Since my very first trip to Israel, I have been — and continue to be — awed by the geography of the place. It never ceases to amaze me that we can, in 2023, walk in the place named in the Tanakh, or in our sacred stories. Cruse of oil aside, it was a miracle to buy a sufganiah, a jelly donut, in modern day Modi’in, the site of the Hanukkah story, just a few weeks ago. In some years, the beginning of Hanukkah in Israel has been marked by a torchlight parade from Modi’in into Jerusalem, following in the footsteps of the Maccabees. I can imagine the marchers singing the words of the modern Israeli Hannukah song: Banu choshech l’garesh — we have come to banish the darkness; b’yadeinu or va-esh: in our hands, we have light and flame. I do not know if that march happened this [...]
Daily Kavanah – Monday, December 11, 2023
Tonight we light the fifth candle of Hanukkah.I know that for many of us, this Hanukkah feels fraught. Can we celebrate in the midst of such pain for the Jewish people? How do we celebrate a military victory in the midst of a war? And—closer to home—can I celebrate fully and publicly? Is it safe to do so?The Shalom Hartman Institute, with whom Rabbi Yoshi and I traveled to Israel last month, put together a candle-lighting ritual for this year; it is their attempt to answer those questions, particularly the first. What will it feel like, the teaching opens, to light Hanukkah candles when our Jewish family and friends in Israel are still at war?Their suggestion comes in the form of leaning into Jewish values. Specifically, the ones they highlight are: heroism, mutual responsibility, belonging, peoplehood, hope, consolation, faith, and peace. Each is embedded into the Hanukkah story, and each has something [...]