Category Archives: Chants

Delight: Az Titanag

01/22/2012 Alia Meira

Az Titanag al Havayah

Then you will delight in God (Being itself!) (Isaiah 58:14)

The Prophet Isaiah admonishes us to live a Life of Justice and Love. He warns us that our complacency and complicity in the injustice of our time, will obstruct the Divine flow. Then he tells us about the treasures of Delight that await us…

“If only you would truly celebrate Shabbat, And put down your business, your buying and selling and bargaining and scheming with the resources that were never yours to begin with, If you would delight in the restful sanity of Pure Being, Then you are delighting in Me Participating in the holiness of God. Then I will set you on the high places, So you can get some perspective, So you can truly enjoy the precious inheritance of the life I have given you.”

I chant these words (using Havayah, a word that points us towards Being itself, to stand for the unpronounceable YudHayVovHay) and let waves of Delight wash me up onto the highest shores, where I can celebrate the persistent Radiance of Being that shines out through the ever-changing content of my life.

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

Delight

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Delight PDF. For the musical notation, see The Magic of Hebrew Chant, page 312.

Chants, Psalms

Heart Walk: Et-halaych

01/06/2012 Alia Meira

Et-halaych b’tam l’vavi, b’kerev bayti
Heart Walk Hebrew text
I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. (Psalm 101:2)

To ﬁnd the integrity of my heart is to return to its innocence, simplicity, and wholeness, and then live my life from that place. When Life gets complicated, tangled up and overwhelming, it’s time to “go for a walk.”

Et-halaych is a reﬂexive verb (to take yourself for a walk) that describes a way of living that is self-aware. I must take this walk within my own house, ﬁrst, if I am to manifest that integrity in the world. My own house might mean the workings of my inner life or the life of my family and intimate relationships, or the sacred realm of “HOME.”

This practice is a walking meditation.

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 Walk PDF. For the musical notation, see The Magic of Hebrew Chant, page 288.

Chants, Liturgy

Standing Before the Mystery: Da Lifnay

12/02/2011 Alia Meira

Da Lifnay mi atah omayd

Know before whom you stand! (adapted from Talmud, Brachot 28b)

These words are inscribed on many synagogue walls and are meant to remind the congregants of the seriousness of prayer. In the past I’ve dismissed this phrase as being too stern, too much like “Big Brother” watching and judging. Yet now, when I chant this phrase, an entirely new meaning emerges. The verb yada to “know” also means to “be intimate with” (to know someone in the Biblical sense).

As I chant, I am called into intimacy with The Great Mystery who stands before me. That Mystery is disguised as this world, as my life. As I stand before that Mystery I am called into my power, in order to fully engage. The veil between me and the world-as-God drops away, and I can experience the intimate knowing that I am not a separate observer, but rather an integral part of The Mystery of existence.

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

Standing Before the Mystery

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Standing Before the Mystery PDF. For the musical notation, see The Magic of Hebrew Chant, page 247.

Chants, Liturgy

Ushpizin

10/11/2011 Alia Meira

Tivu Tivu Ushpizin ila-een, Tivu Tivu Ushpizin Kadishin
Ushpizin Hebrew text
Sit down, sit down, Exalted guests; Sit down sit down holy guests!

A Practice for Sukkot

At the beginning of the High Holy Days, the Days of Awe and T’shuva, I do a practice of asking myself, “Who Don’t you want in your Sukkah?” Who have you thrown out of your heart? Who would you rather avoid? For whom do you hold a grudge?… Then I know what my work will be for those days of Forgiving. By the time Sukkot comes, I want to be able to invite the whole world into my Sukkah, and into my heart.

It is the custom on Sukkot that besides inviting our neighbors and friends, we invite our ancestors and the archetypes they represent, into our Sukkah, and into our hearts. With this chant I extend that invitation and open to the energies of my ancestors, who come to sit beside “all my relations,” who have been re-united by our loving and persistent spiritual work.

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

Ushpizin

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Ushpizin PDF. For the musical notation, see The Magic of Hebrew Chant, page 244.

Chants, Psalms

Min HaMetzar

09/28/2011 Alia Meira

Min HaMetzar karati Yah,
Anani vamerchavYah

From the Narrow place I called out to God
who answered me with the Divine Expanse. (Psalm 118:5)

A High Holy Days Practice

With this chant, we can dedicate our own narrow places — the places of struggle, difficulty, suffering or challenge in our lives… . We can know and accept those narrow places as that which will make our “Call” beautiful and compelling. When we can allow the force of our call to move through our narrow places, through what makes us all-too-human, then our call will be answered by God’s Divine Expanse — a sense of spaciousness in which transformation can happen.

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.