Category Archives: Liturgy

Chants, Liturgy

All Love: Kulam Ahuvim

Kulam Ahuvim, Kulam B’rurim, Kulam Giborim
Hebrew text for All Love chant
All Love, All Clarity, All Power
(from the Kedusha of Yotzer in our Shachrit liturgy)

The Kedusha is a prayer recited three times in three variations in our morning liturgy. It was created by the Merkava mystics to help us ascend to the angelic realms and remember our own true identity as chariots of the Divine Presence. The Kedusha describes and invokes the angels who are calling to each other. With this practice, we become those angels as we rise above the illusions of limited perspective and enter the truth of our love, clarity and power.

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 All Love PDF. To download a PDF file with the musical notation, click All Love music.

Chants, Liturgy, Scripture

Keep the Faith: Raba Emunatecha

Raba Emunatecha
Raba Emunatech Hebrew
How great is Your Faithfulness. (Morning liturgy, Lamentations 3:23)

This practice came to me during a time of turmoil in the world. I was searching for a practice that might acknowledge my grief yet keep me from despair. I needed a practice that would connect me to resources of strength and resilience as I walked through the shadows of fear, rage and devastation. The Book of Lamentations describes a time like this, and one particular phrase from that painful text found its way into the light of our morning liturgy.

God’s faithfulness comes to me as a glimpse of the widest, longest perspective. In that glimpse I am calmed; I relax my frantic grip; I stop trying to figure it out; I begin to trust the flow of inexorable change. As God sees me, I surrender to that faithful gaze. This Divine faith in me, is what grows my own fragile faith. When I am known, seen and loved completely through this Divine faith, I can risk and dare to rise to the challenge of loving this world with all that I am and everything I’ve got.

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

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Keep the Faith PDF.

Chants, Liturgy, Psalms

Celebration in Praise: Kol Ha’n’shama

Hilulah, hilulah, hilulah, Halleluyah!
Hilulah, hilulah, hilulah, Halleluyah!
Kol Ha’n’shama t’hallelyah,
Kol Ha’n’shama t’hallelyah
Hebrew for Celebration In Praise
It’s a Celebration of Praise;
Let all souls praise Yah! (Psalm 150:6)
 
The word Hilulah in modern Hebrew, means celebration. In the Chasidic world, the term has come to mean a celebration in praise and honor of some great sage on the anniversary of their death. We celebrate not only to have a good time, but to honor that teacher and connect with the flow, wisdom and love of a life-well-lived. Through our celebration, we enter that flow, receive that wisdom and open to the possibility of living in the light of that love.

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

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Celebration in Praise PDF. To download the musical notation, click Celebration in Praise Notation PDF.

Chants, Liturgy, Scripture

Entering in to the Larger Goodness: Mah Tovu

Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mish’k’notecha Yisra’eyl.
Va’ani b’rov chas’d’cha, avo betecha.
Mah Tovu Hebrew
How good are your tents, Jacob;
your Divine dwelling places, Israel. (Numbers 24:5)
By your grace, I will enter your house. (Psalm 5:8)

There is a larger Goodness that holds all of the good and the bad, a Unity that holds within it all of the duality. When we enter into that larger Goodness, we can get enough perspective to be able to bless the process of transformation that is in play at this very moment. We are in the process of transforming our Jacob (the heel who is always trying to make a deal with Reality) into Israel (the one who encounters Reality directly). And we are in the process of transforming our plain old tent (body and material existence) into a Mishkan (a place where the Divine Spirit is invited to dwell). Trusting in this process of transformation, we can enter fully into God-consciousness, which can only be attained through Grace.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro teaches that “Grace is God’s unlimited, unconditional, unconditioned, and all-inclusive love for all Creation.” And yes, that’s exactly what opens the door to The Larger Goodness.

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 Entering in to the Larger Goodness PDF.

Chants, Liturgy, Psalms

Surrendering: B’yad’cha afkid ruchi

B’yad’cha afkid ruchi padita oti Yah Ayl Emet
Surrendering Hebrew text
Into Your Hand I entrust my spirit; You redeem me Yah, God of Truth. (Psalm 31:6) (Bedtime liturgy)

In the Talmud (Brachot 4a-5b) Rav Abaye suggests that we chant these words from Psalm 31, to amplify the power of the Bedtime Sh’ma. They help us surrender into God’s loving embrace at the moment when we are about to give ourselves to sleep. Trusting in that embrace, freeing ourselves from the worries of the day, and committing our lives to the Truth of a wider perspective.

I created this practice for a young man who was dying. The chant gave everyone who loved this courageous soul an opportunity to pour that love into a vehicle of transformation as he made the journey through the portal of Death into Greater Life. At the moment of his Death, I felt his soul expand and be taken into the wide embrace.

We can experience that expansion and that embrace each night, as we surrender the illusion of control and give ourselves over to the greater Truth that has been holding us all along.

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 Surrendering PDF. For the musical notation, click Surrendering Music.