Category Archives: Chants

Choose Life: Uvacharta Bachayyim

03/27/2015 Alia Meira

Uvacharta Bachayyim

I have set before you Life and Death, blessing and curse. Choose Life! (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Not just every year, week or day, but every single moment we can choose Life. This means choosing to let go of a negative thought or judgment; it means choosing to live with uncertainty; choosing the kind word or generous attitude; choosing to let go of tension and relax. In every moment we can choose to “be chosen” by God for the best possible Life, for the life we were meant to live fully. In each moment, we can choose to accept the gifts, challenges, opportunities and responsibilities that we are being given.

To hear the various parts of the chant, use the audio players. To download a part, right-click a note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Choose Life PDF. For the musical notation, click Choose Life Music.

Chants, Psalms

Heart Meditation: Im l’vavi

02/05/2015 Alia Meira

Im l’vavi asicha, va’yichapais ruchi

With my heart, I meditate (converse) and my spirit searches. (Psalm 77:7)

There are three phases of this Heart meditation, all meant to awaken the heart as a vehicle of exploration and perception.

1st Phase (with sound and concentration)

Chant Im l’vavi asicha 3X with complete focused gentle attention to the “back door of the heart.”
As you chant va’yichapais ruchi, release and send the inner power that has accumulated in the heart out into the Universe. Let that spirit fly out and explore.
The 2nd time you chant va’yichapais ruchi, allow that spirit to return and find its home within your heart.

2nd phase (with sound and movement)

Turn head to the left, and as you chant Im l’vavi, circle down and around to the right. As you chant asicha circle down and around back to the left. Repeat 3X.
As you chant, va’yichapais ruchi, bow to the center, finding your depths.
The second time you chant, va’yichapais ruchi, lift yourself up into the fullness of your heart.

3rd Phase (silent chanting with breath concentration)

Im l’vavi, on the exhale, asicha in the inhale, spiraling in to the heart. Repeat 3X
On the exhale, va’yichapais ruchi, sending the breath out to search, taste and explore.
On the inhale, va’yichapais ruchi, letting the breath return with information, subtleties and richness.

To hear the various parts of the chant, use the audio players. To download a part, right-click a note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Heart Meditation PDF. For the musical notation, click Heart Meditation Music.

Chants, Liturgy

A New Light: Or Chadash

02/02/2015 Alia Meira

Or Chadash al Tzion ta-ir, v’nizkeh chulanu m’hayra l’oro

Shine a New Light on Zion, and may all of us soon be worthy of enlightenment.

The mystics inserted this prayer for God to bring the Messiah, into our liturgy about creating Light. While I don’t pray for a Messiah that is a person that will save us, I do pray for the proliferation of Messianic Consciousness, which I understand as an awareness of the One Love that holds us all. Receiving God’s Light means becoming enlightened. With this practice, I call forth a new light and open to that radiance.

While I was creating this practice, my friend in Jerusalem, D’ror, passed from this world. He was such a great light, brimming with charm, creativity, playfulness and good humor. In his passing, I felt D’ror’s God-light spread out into our world. May we be worthy of this blessing of his radiance.

To hear the various parts of the chant, use the audio players. To download a part, right-click a note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

To download the PDF file for this chant, click A New Light PDF. For the musical notation, click A New Light Music.

Chants, Liturgy

Emerson ‘Modah Ani’

01/07/2015 Alia Meira

This ‘Modah Ani’ chant is based on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s English words:

For each new morning with its light
For rest and shelter of the night
For health and food
For love and friends
For everything Thy goodness sends!

Modah Ani L’fanecha.

Modah Ani (I gratefully acknowledge)
L’fanecha (You… or literally, To Your Face… and the word face in Hebrew is plural, so even more literally… Your Faces)

For Rabbi Shefa’s thoughts about gratefulness, see her teaching Gratefulness as the Foundation of Practice. For other Modah Ani chants, see the Flavors of Gratefulness page.

To hear the chant, use the audio player. To download the chant, right-click the note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

Emerson Modah Ani Mix

To download a PDF file with musical notations for this chant, click Emerson ‘Modah Ani’ Music.

Chants, Psalms

Filling Up: Sova

11/18/2014 Alia Meira

Sova smachot et panecha

Filling up with the joys of Your Presence (Psalm 16:11)

This is a practice of deliberately filling ourselves up with joy, beauty, light, and vitality. We chant that word “sova” three times, and with each repetition, we open up a greater capacity for joy, cultivating and stimulating those inner receptors that can open to Divine Presence. Sometimes I do this practice with my eyes open, taking in the beauty of the things of this world, filling up with the magnificence of light, color, fragrance and the vast variety of God’s Creation.

This practice can also be done as a circle dance. Stand in a circle and then face a partner. Look into your partners’ eyes and allow God’s light to shine through them to you. Each person that you face in this dance shines a particular and unique refraction of that one light. Fill up with that light as you chant Sova, sova, sova smachot (2X). Then as you chant Sova smachot et panecha the first time, take hands with your partner and slowly change places. The second time, turn to face your new partner and take in their unique light.

To hear the various parts of the chant, use the audio players. To download a part, right-click a note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.