Category Archives: Liturgy

Chants, Liturgy

A New Light: Or Chadash

Or Chadash al Tzion ta-ir, v’nizkeh chulanu m’hayra l’oro
A New Light (Or Chadash) Hebrew text
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’

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.
ModahAni
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.

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

Chants, Liturgy, Psalms

An Invitation to Shabbat: L’chu

L’chu n’ra’n’na La’Adonai
L'chu Hebrew text
Oh, go forth, let us express our joy! (Psalm 95:1)

These are the first words of the traditional Kabbalat Shabbat Service. They are meant to move us out of our complacency and awaken us to the miracle of Shabbat which is just happening. The word n’ra’n’na is related to ra’n’nim, which are a certain kind of very expressive bird (mentioned in Job 39:13). Birds are so very unself-conscious in how they express their joy. They are our teachers of song. This is a practice of finding whatever joy might be locked up in your heart, and letting it out. In expressing our joy, we then can invite each other to step forth into the sacred realm of Shabbat.

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 Invitation to Shabbat PDF. For the musical notation, click L’chu Music.

Chants, Liturgy

Gratitude and Hope: Modim anachnu Lach

Modim anachnu Lach… Me’olam kivinu Lach.
Gratitude and Hope Hebrew text
We Thank You… We hope for You always. (Amida)

In the 17th blessing of the Daily Amida (and the 6th blessing of the Shabbat Amida) there is a paragraph that begins with a prayer of thanks and ends with a prayer of hope. I wondered about the relationship between gratitude and hope.

There have been times in my life when I have struggled with a sense of hopelessness, and I knew that re-establishing my hope was absolutely essential to being able to take the next step on my spiritual path. But, where to begin? Perhaps gratitude might be a doorway. At other times I can’t find my gratitude, but there is a glimmer of hope within me. Might I follow that glimmer and walk through the doorway of hope into my gratefulness?

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 Gratitude and Hope PDF. For the musical notation, click Gratitude and Hope Music.

Chants, Liturgy

Going Up With Joy: V’sham nashir

V’sham nashir shir chadash u’vir’nana na’aleh
Going Up With Joy Hebrew text
And there we will sing a new song; with joy we will go up. (from Tzur Mishelo)

KZ5 Chant (7/2012)

These words are from the last stanza of Tzur Mishelo, a Shabbat hymn that was composed and compiled between the 11th and 16th centuries under the guidance of Rabbis Isaac Luria and Israel Najara. It is a reflection upon and praise of Shabbat and is thought to be an introduction to Birkat Hamazon (Grace after Meals) on which the first three stanzas are clearly based. Some believe this zemer to have originated with the Tannaim, the rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the mishna, from approximately 70-200 CE.

This is a practice of letting the joy in our voices raise us up into sacred space.

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 Going Up With Joy PDF. For the musical notation, see The Magic of Hebrew Chant, page 251.

The Magic of Hebrew Chant ©2013 Shefa Gold. All rights reserved.