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, December 19, 2023
In dark times, the Jewish People have been kept not by optimism, but by hope. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said that “optimism and hope are not the same. Optimism is the belief that the world is changing for the better; hope is the belief that, together, we can make the world better.” Tikvah, hope, has always been our guiding light. I remember sitting in Jerusalem listening to a choir sing Hatikvah at a memorial service for fallen soldiers. The overwhelming feeling of grief was present, but what lingered beyond that was hope and a commitment to soldiers currently serving. Hope is not something we all inherently have, but is something everyone present at that service had chosen. And is something we all must choose. The last few months, it has been difficult to choose hope over despair. But I have seen our community at Stephen Wise — and Jewish communities in Israel and around the [...]
Daily Kavanah – Monday, December 18, 2023
As winter persists, our inclination is to continue to seek the light that we warmed ourselves with during Chanukah. This reflex is not incorrect. Judaism seems to be all about light. We are to be a “light unto the nations”; we bring in our holidays by lighting candles, illuminating our hopes and joy. Though we often see darkness as dangerous, concealing what might be out to harm us, Trisha Arlin writes that “over millions of years, organisms evolved to thrive in the dark, eyes big and reflective… flourished under the stars and waning moon.” There is beauty in darkness. It is in darkness we are called to reflect, to process, to recreate. In our Genesis creation story, God does not just create light, but darkness as well, signifying the importance and holiness of both. We see in our morning and evening prayers, Yotzer Or and Maariv Aravim, the significance of both light [...]
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 [...]