Posts Tagged ‘חסד’

 

Omer, Week One: Chesed

Posted on: April 19th, 2011 by tobendlight

chesed1Here’s a list of prayers for your use during week one of Counting the Omer: Chesed– Lovingkindness, love, benevolence. They’re listed in my suggested order, from day 1 at the top of the list to day 7 at the bottom. To read them, please click on the name of the prayer.

And a prayer about Counting the Omer: “The Season of Counting.”

During the seven weeks from Passover to Shavuot, the period from the exodus to revelation on Sinai, Jews count the days and the weeks. And so we remember the journey from the depths of slavery to the heights of G-d’s Holy Presence. According to mystical practice, each week has a theme (and each day a sub-theme) that leads us toward revelation. Here are links to prayers and meditations for each week of counting the Omer and Shavuot:

  • Week One: Chesed (Lovingkindness, Love, Benevolence)
  • Week Two: Gevurah (Discipline, Justice, Restraint, Awe)
  • Week Three: Tiferet (Beauty, Harmony, Compassion, Truth)
  • Week Four: Netzach (Eternity, Endurance, Fortitude, Ambition)
  • Week Five: Hod (Humility, Splendor)
  • Week Six: Yesod  (Foundation, Bonding)
  • Week Seven: Malchut (Nobility, Sovereignty, Leadership)
  • Shavuot

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Photo Credit: Kabbalah Names

For Grace

Posted on: July 28th, 2010 by tobendlight

IMG_0972This is meditation about living a life of grace, humility and love. How? By offering grace to others. This prayer, which is appropriate at any time of the year, has particular relevance during the first week of Counting of the Omer and during the Hebrew month of Elul. This prayer appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press.

For Grace
All I am,
All I have,
All I’ll become
Are present in this moment:
Warmth and breath,
Love and compassion,
Silence and celebration.
Everything, here.
All gifts, present.

What then, G-d of All Being,
What then of my choices?
What will I make of the space
Between this breath and the next?
Will I bring laughter and light,
Hope and faith,
Wonder and strength?
Will I stand in humble service
For all of my brothers and sisters?

Maker of heaven and earth,
Grant us the wisdom to choose lives of grace,
Lives of vision and understanding,
Seeing each moment as a choice
To bless our companions
With strength and wisdom,
With honor and respect.

Blessed are the gentle moments of grace.

© 2019 CCAR Press from This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Credit: Alden Solovy

“Alden has become one of Reform Judaism’s master poet-liturgists…" - Religion News Service, Dec. 23, 2020

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"Alden Solovy has become one of the most revered liturgists of the last decade…" - Jewish Post & Opinion, March 29, 2023

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