Tiku vachodesh shofar
Ba’keseh l’yom chagaynu
Ki chok l’Yisrael hu mishpat L’Elohai Ya’akov
Sound a shofar at the New Moon…. at the moment of concealment/potential for our Celebration Day. It is a statute for Israel; it is a rule for Jacob. (Psalm 81:4-5)
[Click (or tap) to see the entire Psalm 81 in Hebrew and English (JPS 1985).]
We live our lives in the holy cycles of exile and return, forgetting and remembering, going out from ourselves and returning again to center. We cycle between being Jacob, the ego struggling to manipulate the world, to being Israel, the one who encounters God directly. Through our calendar and festivals we attune to the cycles of the moon whose waxing and waning reflects our own spiritual cycles. As awareness of those cycles deepens, the circles of our lives become spirals, connecting the mysteries of the universe with our own Center.
NOTE: This is the Thursday chant of the Journey Through the Daily Psalms chants.
To hear the chant, use the audio player. To download the chant, right-click the note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.
- New Moon
To download the PDF file for this chant, click New Moon PDF. For the musical notation, see The Magic of Hebrew Chant, page 302.
The Magic of Hebrew Chant ©2013 Shefa Gold. All rights reserved.