The Project Begins

Welcome to The Kavana Project. Our Mission: to analyze, define, and defy the space between “knowing what the words mean” and that thing we call Kavana. Or, as we say it over here, to bridge the gap between meaning and meaningful.
To wit: Operation Birchot HaShachar. We’ve created an image for each of the fourteen Morning Brachot- a small combo of text and art to reflect and inspire what we think about (or at least, try to remember to think about) while rushing to catch up to the Chazzan. Reflecting on what we reflect on led to The Questions We Face in Our Search for Kavana.
You may not agree with some pieces. You definitely won’t sympathize with all. Hopefully, the contrast will concretize your thoughts. Please, share those thoughts with us. This is a work in, you guessed it, Project: your ideas, your comments, and your response to the images are integral. There’s a comments button for a reason. So take a leisurely scroll down and remember to ask:
"WHAT'S MY KAVANAH?"








On Sincerity

Barukh Atah . . . for not making me a gentile.

How can you possibly say this bracha while bearing in mind two thousand years of slaughter and exile? Can you honestly bless God for making you a Jew? Is an insincere blessing permitted?

Granted, you can argue the situation in 2007 is different- but was your great-grandfather foolish or just deluding himself?

The point with the picture (and yes, those are Nazis cutting off a Jew’s beard) is that you have to confront this image before making the bracha. If your kavana can’t pass the test of a Holocaust, then it needs to be reworked.

Personally, I bless God for including me in the special mission he gave the Jewish people. To be a Goy Kadosh and Memlekhet Cohanim which strives l’Taken Olam b’Malkhut Shakai. It is a mission that grows more noble, more ambitious, and more necessary with every additional pogrom or suicide bombing. This, in my eyes, is the tragic but courageous meaning of Naaseh v’Nishmah: hey, we know what we were getting ourselves into. It may not be pretty, but I pray it is sincere.

Posted by Ben Greenfield

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