The Light Lab Podcast Episode 17: Everyday Holiness (Amidah-Kedushah)

1:45AM Mar 1, 2022

Speakers:

Eliana Light

Josh Warshawsky

Ellen Dreskin

Keywords:

kadosh

holiness

holy

adonai

shabbat

translation

words

angels

baruch

moment

kadesh

rabbi

yom

raising

blessing

phrase

thinking

josh

part

line

Shalom everyone and welcome once again to the Light Lab Podcast. My name is Eliana light. I am here with my good friends Cantor Ellen Dreskin.

Hello, everybody!

And Rabbi Josh Warshawsky.

Great to be back, as always.

And I have kind of an esoteric question for us this morning, which is: Tell me about a recent experience of kedushah that you've had in your life? I'm not going to translate that yet. Maybe we'll find out what you think about it through your answers. Ellen, why don't you start?

Well, I wish you can see my face right now. Because every time I thought about the question, or I read the question, I have to close my eyes and sit very still to think of an answer. And so just in that moment, I'm glad we're not translating because there's something about the just sitting with the question that for me, produced a kedushah experience in that contemplation. And for now, I just need to leave it there.

I love that meta answer that the question itself is a kedushah moment. And now that you've said that, I can kind of feel my nervous system slowing down, I can feel myself become a little calmer and more centered. Just thinking kedushah. Yes, Josh, how about you?

I think, you know, over the course of the last two years, we started out spending a lot of time on Zoom. And then at some point, I got very tired of doing things on Zoom. And I was doing a lot of work with different communities over zoom, and then stopped for the most part, I was doing more things in person, and less things virtually. But one thing that always continued was that every Tuesday morning, I have a musical tefillah with a day school in Chicago, kindergarten through fifth graders. And usually they're all in their own classrooms. And they're sort of dancing and singing, and we're starting the morning together with prayer. And this week, for the first time, they were allowed to gather larger than just their immediate classrooms. So it was these grades were I think, in many schools there, it's sort of just in their units. And they had the all the third through fifth graders together and all the Kinder all the first and second graders together, you could tell that there is I wasn't in the room, but I could see those two rooms. And you could tell that the energy had just shifted from what had been in the classroom. So just be able to be with more people and just get up and dance and move around. And it was one of those things where you can see that there's a holy moment happening when I'm watching it on a screen. And I know that I was helping to create that moment. But the moment was happening elsewhere. And so I was able to sort of experience an outer sense of kedushah. I think that that's sort of what I'm internalizing that word that I was I was watching and experiencing a moment of kedushah happening, and feeling blessed to just be an observer in it.

That is so beautiful. Oh my gosh, what lucky children. Well, lucky you that you get to sing with those children. What am mechaye, as we said last time what a back to life moment. I'm thinking about how kedushah in my life comes in what might be classified as big moments and small moments. Like this morning, I sat in my little spot and a niggun and came out and that felt very holy. But I'm also thinking about how last week, a friend and I went to a concert, an actual concert. You know, it was insane. Vaccine mandates, masks the whole deal. Big stadium, everyone was just so full, like you said Josh, so full of energy, just bursting with life. And everyone was singing. And I was almost in tears the whole time. Just to hear thousands of people singing together. And getting to be a part of it. I couldn't even believe it. It was a balance between wanting to be in the moment and experience it fully and kind of stepping outside of it, like you said and looking at it and being like, wow, this is an amazing holy moment, and then like putting myself back into it. I've been saying the word holy as if that's what kedushah means but that word is so rich and so fast. So before we even jump into the third blessing in our Amidah, which is kedushat Hashem, let's explore that word kedushah a little deeper. Ellen, why don't you take us through?

I think it's it's got to be the place where we open up and I don't know if it'll clarify anything or just make things cloudier, which is always fun as well. This is a funny root: kuf daled shin and just like you mentioned Eliana, it says, What does that mean? Well, we translated as holy or something to do with holiness and then you ask the question, well, what does that mean for something to be holy? And you say, well, it's, holiness is like sanctity. And then you have to ask the question, okay? What's that? We have so many Hebrew words with that root, so many words we're familiar with. And so maybe if we can find something that they have in common, we'll get ourselves closer to a definition, because I hope that everyone listening can think of things with that root, like we've already said, kedushah, but then there's our kiddish, our prayer over the fruit of the vine, there's Kaddish, there's whether it's Kaddish Yatom the mourners kaddish or a half kaddish. It's a marker in our liturgy. Kidushin is the Hebrew word for marriage. And in our blessings, we say all the time, asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav, just in our Siddur alone, there are so many different instances, not to mention Torah, let's talk about maybe some of the places where that root appears in Torah. I bet y'all can come up with a couple.

So this is this is an interesting, this morning, I was making recordings for a Torah student of mine, teaching her trope. And she has the part from Leviticus about the death of Nadav and Avihu, Aaron's sons. And one of these lines, it's such it's such a robust and kind of sad and cutting story. It's a difficult story. And it says Moses said to Aaron, this is what yud hev vav hey meant by saying through those nearest to me, I show myself holy, bikrovai ekadesh, bikrovai ekadesh, through this, I show through those that draw near to Me, I show Myself holy. And what that means in the context of the story is cloudy and challenging. But I'm wondering what it means, something about drawing yourself near or being drawn. Because in all of the things that you said, there is something about a moment of acknowledgement of raising something up, right when we say Kiddush we're using the wine almost as a conduit to bless something else. Right, you know, boreh pri hagafen is the blessing over wine. But when we say kiddush on Shabbat, we say mekadesh Shabbat, we are saying G?d makes Shabbat holy. But to me, it's actually through the act of saying Kiddush that we make Shabbat holy. Because Shabbat is always there, perhaps it only becomes holy once we acknowledge it. The same thing with Kadish, the memory of the one that we have loved is always there, we raise it to the level of holiness by acknowledging it. Same thing with kiddushin with a marriage. People are there right? Your partner is there we raise it to the level of holiness by acknowledging it. Josh, I see you nodding do you have a thought about that?

Yeah, I mean, I love that idea of of bikrovai ekadesh. Not only because that's also my bar mitzvah parshah. And that, you know, it's something that I've been thinking about also but it and we were saying about a wedding and noticing and lifting, lifting that whole experience up and making it Kadosh I think there's also something in Kadosh about about separate separating, right, what what you do at a wedding is in that kiddushin moment, you are separating the one that you're going to marry from everyone else. It's a choice. It's not saying that this is a better than everything else, it's saying that this is for me, Kadosh. Right, kadosh doesn't necessarily have to be a hierarchy of something else being better than something else, Shabbat being better than the rest of the week, you know, that doesn't have to have to necessarily be like that. But it's an idea of, I am choosing to make this thing Kadosh for me. Shabbat when we do kidush, we're saying Shabbat is holy, is Kadosh for me. And in that moment, when you do that with at kidushin, you're making an active choice. And I think there's something important about the intentionality of that moment I'm choosing to say and choose this thing to be Kadosh.

Choosing and also separating.

That's right.

You know, when when thinking of back on my own education, I think I learned kedushah as having something to do with separateness? Does that sound familiar?

Well, it's so interesting. I mean, I think that we're getting at the crux of this word, that means both connected and separated. And that has to do you know, with drawing close, but yet, you know, going back Josh to that, to being able to observe kedushah, to see it in, in, in a space, in a person, in a moment. If I can jump forward and going more into some Torah verses that, you know, there's so many things that are proclaimed holy. The first thing in the Torah that is Kadosh is time, is Shabbat, right from the book of Genesis, you know, G?d makes Shabbat holy as a time. And then we get to the burning bush, and G?d says, Moses, take off your shoes because you're standing on holy ground, now it's not time, it's space. And then we get to the portion right smack in the center of the Torah, in Leviticus 19, the holiness code, as it's called. Kedoshim tihiyu, now y'all are gonna be Kadosh. It really can pop up anywhere. And and it's a really interesting question, does it make us feel different and separate? Or does it make us feel more connected and what's going on there?

And I think there's also something really important about the both and they're right, when when you are becoming more connected to this one thing, when you're saying, This day is holy, this person is holy, this group is holy, there is inherently a disconnect from everything else. So I think you're doing right, you're doing the pulling closer, the connectedness and the pushing away, the separate is at the same time, right? Both are happening in that word, and with whatever you're naming as Kadosh.

It's so interesting, I'm thinking about it less as pushing away. And I think I've used this image for mindfulness or blessings before, but imagine like a run on sentence, and you put a bracket around two words, it's still a sentence. But now you've kind of closed off for yourself those two particular words, you've both taken them out of the sentence, but they're still there. You know, I'm thinking about Kabalistic ideas about how we are all separate beings, and yet we are still like the void of creation is still around us. Like they're still both nothing and everything behind us, the expansiveness of G?d is here, I'm going back to that image of the cup, pouring up from the water and pouring down. It's something about acknowledging a particular in order to go back to the universal with maybe a little more noticing. Because without Shabbat, time is kind of just fluid. And it can go on and you don't notice it. By raising up Shabbat, it might help us feel in the flow of time, more. But it's not that time isn't there, still, it's that we're putting a bracket around Shabbat. And we are saying, we are choosing to acknowledge this piece. I'm thinking about a word that I learned from one of our favorite musicals In The Heights "Alabanza." That's what's been going through my head as we've been doing this, which is it says means to raise this thing to G?d's face. Right? We're taking something we're raising it up, noticing. Yeah, the holiness that's already been there.

Yes, that that idea of elevation is something new, and I appreciate you introducing it.

One of my favorite ideas that goes back to this difference between separating and raising up is from Rabbi Ed Feinstein, who says that we can look about what Kodesh means from its opposite. The opposite of Kodesh, as we learned from Havdalah, is chol, we usually take that to mean every day, which is an interesting translation. But chol also means sand. So what is sand. Sand is a bunch of little particles, if you pick up sand, it all runs out through your hand, they're not connected. So perhaps the opposite of that is connection. Right? Kodesh is all one where we feel into the oneness that is all around us. And maybe it's easier to do that when we focus on something in particular, when we put our focus on a day, in particular, on a person in particular, and through that connection, we feel a greater connection to One-ness.

You know, I like to think about gematria and hema numerology and the connections between different words and what different words are standing for. The word kuf daled shin for Kadesh is 404, which like in internet terms, right? That's like an error, right? You can't it's beyond comprehension. Kadosh, right. So what how do we even define it, it goes beyond our ability to compute. It's something that is beyond and above and different and separate is, but also connected to these different places, but not able to land on one thing, there's that Kadesh. And also, it's the same as da'at, which is faith or religion, that the whole the whole point of being a part of this thing is to find a way to get closer to what we feel is Kadosh that's what religion is all about.

Wow, that's incredible. I love using the internet as a way to more fully understand our ideas of holiness, because the web is all connected. And with that, we'll be right back.

So do we have a better understanding of kedushah? I'm not 100% sure, but hopefully we've given you more to think about as we move into the third blessing of our Amidah, Kedushat Hashem, the kedushah-ifying, one might say, of the name of the Holy One, and we're gonna start with the version, well, I won't say anymore. Josh, why don't you take us through?

I love calling it the kedushah-isizing. I think we were in a long line of tradition of not of not translate intentionally not translating specific words. We've come across that a couple times in our podcasts where where it's like, Baruch Atah Adonai, and various other places have been left untranslated to be at the, at the will of the pray-er. I love that. So we're gonna move into this these words of Kedushat Hashem in, in the Conservative Movement Siddur, these are the words that you say when you're moving into a silent Amidah we'll talk more about some differences in in in different movements, and they're the words that begin the Amidah blessing it for the sorry the words that begin that Kedushah, the blessing for the kedushah is the same here as it is for the the full larger kedushah that we'll talk about in just a little bit, but I'll read the words for us right now. We'll see what do we notice? What are we experiencing? What are we hearing? I'm reading from the Conservative Movement's Siddur Sim Shalom for weekdays, the slim sim. Atah kadosh v'shimcha kadosh, ukdoshim b'chol yom hehalelucha sela. Baruch atah adonai hael hakadosh. Translation in here is: Holy are You and holy is Your name. Holy are those who praise you each day. Praised are You Adonai, Holy G?d. And if I were to go with work in translation, it would be Kadosh are You and Kadosh is your name. Kadosh are those who praise you each day. Praised are you Adonai, Kadosh G?d. What are we noticing?

Well, I have to jump in here. I grew up in the Reform Movement, and the placement of kedushah and the length and the language used is different than in other denominations. So just to clarify is that this atah Kadosh prayer that you're introducing Josh is used in the Reform Movement in all evening services, and other versions that we're going to be talking about that, that begin with the words we'll get there in a moment, or when we do Shabbat, or the morning, nekadesh et shimcha. So the versions that begin with those words, the Reform Movement uses in the morning, and the Atah Kadosh, where it's in the evening, just to get us all a little as much on the same page as we can be.

Now that you've mentioned that the first thing that I'm noticing if if we're choosing to use one version in the morning, and one version in the evening, the thing that I'm noticing in the difference is the tense. Right, the one in the morning then, we're saying that the morning was nekadesh, right in the evening was atah kadosh. In the morning we're saying we are going to hofa'ah, we're going to Kadesh and in the evening, we're saying you are Kadosh. I wonder what sort of what's what's happening there? How - are you? Kadosh? Because we have Kadesh to you throughout the day? Is something else happening here? What's going on with this, this change in tense that that changes when we move to different portions of our of our service?

Okay, well, those who are listening, I hope you'll look up that question and you'll come back to us and and let us know. In general, ma'ariv tends to be you know, a shorter service at the end of the day. And perhaps it's as simple as that and giving credit to the editors of our Reform Siddur, I'm sure a lot more conversation went into it than that.

Yes. And we were talking before the recording started about how part of this stems from the Reform Movement, not really having a tradition of silent Amidah. Where as in other prayer traditions in the evening, it's all silent. Right in the evening, for us, this atah kadosh is the only kedushah we would say whereas in the morning with a minyan, with a quorum of at least 10, we would say the fuller paragraph that we're going to talk about later. And what's interesting is that fuller paragraph, there's a lot going on there's there's communion, there's things talk, there's angels talking to each other and here, it's a atah. It's you. It's direct. It's about me as the pray-er and the Holy One. And I become part of the yehalelucha selah. Right, I become part of the praise-ers because I am engaged in the act of prayer. Which means not only am I saying in this moment, I am choosing to focus on G?d and raising that up and setting it apart. I'm choosing to focus on G?d's name, which we'll get into and I'm choosing to focus on me and my community that I am a part of. So it seems a little more more personal. And definitely repetitive and like a mantra that could be like okay, who, but I'm about to get into my Amidah. Let's remember, atah kadosh veshimcha kadosh, kedoshim bechol yom, right, all right, I'm kind of psyching myself up in a way.

In those moments when in any part of the Amidah in the Reform Movement is done privately, the first three blessings including Kedushat Hashem, are almost always done aloud. And then perhaps we'll we'll go into more private moments, but the kedushah is, is included in the out loud parts in the proclaim more proclaimitory moments at the Amidah.

I'm thinking about those words, Kedushin bechol yom yehalelucha sela, and I pulled it out another Siddur, because I was interested in the translation that I had previously read, which was Holy are those who praise You each day. And so then I pulled out the Conservative Movement's newest Siddur, the Lev Shalem, which has a different translation. It was, I think, 10 years later. And again, translation is always an interpretation. Here, it says, Holy ones praise You each day, as opposed to Holy are those who praise You each day, the change, in my mind being the praising is what makes one holy, like linking our voice to G?d to Kadosh. And G?d is what makes us holy? Or is it those who are already holy, are praising You each day? And the new translation is the one who is linking us together to this chain that this act is what is connecting us to Kadosh? Which I think I prefer.

I like that because even though I might not say, the kedushah text every day, what does it mean to find a moment every day where I'm raising something up, setting something apart, and proclaiming it as holy?

Oftentimes, I'm troubled by the the human centric nature of our prayers and our translations and and this is one moment where I keep reading about Holy Ones and ones who are holy. And I've also read commentary that says the kedoshim bechol yom are still the angels that we speak about in terms of proclaiming G?d's kedushah. But I love kedoshim bechol yom, that phrase sticks out to me because I think also because I was raised in the reform movement that we call birkot hashachar as we've mentioned in previous episodes, nisim bechol yom, which can be translated as the oxymoron of everyday miracles. So when I see the phrase kedoshim bechol yom, my mind and my heart goes back to nisim bechol yom. And I tend to translate this phrase every day holinesse-s, not just people or angels or but when I stopped to connect, or when I stopped to elevate anything, as you mentioned, Eliana, then I think I love the phrase everyday holiness-es, and I want to give that one more thought.

I love that too. And I think I think it's imperative when you said when I stop and I right, when I stopped, and I noticed, you got to notice it. The most amazing thing could be going on outside your window. But if you're not paying attention, is it holy? Maybe in and of itself, but you're not experiencing that holiness. It has something to do with noticing.

I wonder often I'm sorry to interrupt you. But I think often about you know, G?d said Shabbat as holy, well, that's nice. And what do I need to do each week to make that a reality that Shabbat is a holy time if I don't pay any attention to it at all? Is Shabbat still holy? It's a it's a question I wonder about.

Yeah, I think something that concretizes some of this is in this paragraph itself, where it says atah kadosh veshimcha kadosh, and your name is holy, something about names. And Rabbi Marcia Falk has this beautiful teaching that if we understand as the rabbi's did, of holiness as being set apart, one good way to set something apart or where we set something apart as humans is by naming it, right? It's by naming it something. Your cat is different from all the other cats in the world. Partially because you have named your cat or you give your loved ones nicknames or pet names. And we say this day is Shabbat. It's not just Saturday, it's Shabbat. When we name something, we are giving ourselves the chance to elevate it and notice it. Even in a bracha where we say, I know this is your favorite Ellen right, asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav, we are saying through this action we are setting this action apart. You know, lighting Shabbat candles is not just like lighting a scented candle because you want a nice smell in your house, because of the name that we give it because of the intention that we put into it.

I have to ask the question, I'm so curious. When we say, shimcha kadosh, your name is Kadosh. Is it the name yud hey vav hey, that become that we're acknowledging is Kadosh, are we actually saying yet another name for G?d is just kadosh, that's your name, right there. And.

So a mapping for thought, that means we are naming G?d, right, which we do all the time, because any names that G?d has, in my understanding any names that G?d has, are ones that human beings gave G?d, or within the Torah, there are moments, a lot of moments where G?d names G?d's Self. But here in the moment, if we say, and your name is Holy, then we are naming G?d, which there is also precedent for. That's beautiful. Another thing I just want to raise up before we move to the, with minyan version of this is the word Selah, which in our very favorite book, My People's Prayer Book, Joel Hoffman points out that Selah is often seen as a musical term, but not so common that it could just be like it's a sharper, it's a flat ukdoshim yom yehalelucha selah, it's held out longer than usual. And I'm thinking about how a holy moment, even after that moment is gone, the reverberations of that moment stay with you. It's not like the moment is done, and then you hop back over the close parentheses into a life that is regular. By taking these moments and raising them up, the whole thing gets elevated a little bit more, the sparkles of that moment are still there.

I think that as we raise things, how can we help but be raised ourselves. As we notice things we're changed.

Amen amen. So now let's take a look at the version of the kedushah, Kedushat Hashem that we say in the weekday Amidah in the mornings when we have a minyan, a quorum of 10, or when we are engaged in our repetition of the Amidah, and see what similarities or differences we find. Nekadesh et shimcha baolam, b'shem shemakdishim oto bishmei marom, kakatuv al yad neviecha, vekara ze el ze veamar. Kadosh kadosh kadosh adonai tzevaot melo chol ha'aretz kevodo. The translation that I have here in the Sim Shalom says, We proclaim Your Holiness on earth, as it is proclaimed in the heavens above. We sing the words of heavenly voices as recorded in your prophets vision. Holy, holy, holy, Adonai tzevaot, the whole world is filled with G?d's glory. There is so much to unpack here. Why do we notice? What are some different translations we have?

I have in the Reform Siddur, Mishkan Tefillah: Let us sanctify Your name as it is sanctified in the heavens above, as is written by your prophets. So we'll have to come back and say, well, Prophet who's that? What's that going on? Holy, holy, holy is Adonai Tzevaot, a phrase that the reform editors chose not to translate. G?d's presence fills all the earth.

I think there's something really interesting in the the choosing sanctify and versus proclaim, right? The difference for me being in proclaiming G?d's holiness, we're just announcing the holiness that already existed, while in sanctifying G?d's holiness, we are the ones who are holy-ing who are mekadesh-ing G?d. I wonder if and so, and I think that what the Hebrew is, it seems to me that the the translation that Ellen that you just shared, is much closer to the actual words which are the root where we're getting at is nekadesh, and kadesh shemakdishim, those who Kadesh those who sanctify feels like a closer English translation to that particular word.

We haven't heard that makdish. Lehakdish is a causative form of the verb. It's much more active than passive,

Right.

And in Rabbi Jill Hammer's translation, it really gets too: Let us all make Your name holy in the world. I love that. Let's do it. Justice, celestial beings make it holy on high because we're about to quote a line from Isaiah, as your prophets wrote, holy, holy, holy, is the deity of multitudes, which is how she translates Adonai Tzevaot, which I absolutely love. Tzevaot like battalions of soldiers. so it can often have a militaristic meeting. But it's also just a lot of a lot of something. Deity of multitudes, the whole earth is full of Divine Presence.

It's interesting to note that while we're talking about the kedushah in the context of the Amidah, that this isn't the first time that a kedushah appears in our liturgy in the morning. That an entire version of this a much longer expanded version exists in the Yotzeir prayer, which has a much larger vision described, which includes angels and all sorts of celestial beings. And this is a little bit of an encapsulation and makes me wonder when it says nekadesh, and all these ways that G?d's name is sanctified bishvei marom, in the heavens above, what's going on with that?

Well, something that I think we get to do here is act out. It's like we're play acting, something that has taken place in the heavens, right. According to Isaiah six, there is this really incredible vision that Isaiah has. Sarah have stood in attendance, each of them had six wings. With two he covered his face with two he covered his legs, and with two, he would fly, okay, so we have these bonkers six winged angels, we have an image before that, of the holy one sitting on a huge throne, with G?d's robe filling the entire temple, and vekara zel el ze ve'amar is a direct line from here, Isaiah six, three, and one would call to the other. And so the choreography that we have been handed down, which I think, from what I've read in My People's Prayer Book comes from the Hasidic tradition, we bend, we, we go, left, right and center, play acting at these angels, and then going up on our toes, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, literally raising ourselves up in opposition. Now I'm thinking to bowing, where we literally lower ourselves and humble ourselves. Now we are play acting as the angels, we are raising up on our toes, using Isaiah's vision, to proclaim G?d's name holy in the world.

Actually, my favorite phrase in all of this that we're talking about right now is this last line of the section that says melo chol ha'aretz kevodo. And I look at the the translation that I'm looking at here. And it says, G?d's presence fills all the earth. And usually it says, got something about that about G?d filling all the earth, and I'm looking at the Hebrew and that's not what I see at all. I think that if it were gonna say, G?d's presence fills the earth, then it would be G?d's presence, malay chol haaretz, as an activator. This is melo chol ha'aretz, which means the fullness of the earth, kevodo. So it's not that G?d's presence fills the Earth, but that the fullness of the Earth is G?d's kavod. Is G?d's substance weight honor. And that's a really important phrase that changes the whole thing for me, that's kind of the whole ball of wax right there sometimes. So I just wanted to make note of that. And if there are linguists out there who want to say more about that grammar, it's fine, but to me, it's very different than have G?d filling something and have the fullness of something be G?d. So as we go forward in this version of the condition that we're looking at, I'll read a little bit more in Hebrew. It says leumatam baruch yomeru, baruch kevod adonai mimkomo, uvedivrei kodshecha katuv lemor, yimloch adonai leolam elohayich tzion ledor vador haleluyah. Do we have different translations of this one? I, mine begins, my translation begins with they responded in blessing. Leumatam baruch yomeru. Blessed is the presence of G?d shining forth from where G?d dwells. In Your holy scripture it is written, Adonai will reign forever, G?d of Zion for all generations, Hallelujah. And so the only thing that I can imagine is with all the angels that we've been speaking about that leumatam baruch yomeru, that Isaiah describes this, they're bowing one to the other, facing each other in in opposition to each other, across the aisle from each other. And all of this bowing and blessing says that G?d is blessed mimkomo, from its place, from G?d's place. And I have to say that based on the melo chol ha'aretz kevodo, now I'm thinking about, well, what places are those? Where is G?d's place?

I love that question of Where's is G?d's place? But as you were reading, since I have all of these sources. To me now, it's not just the angels are talking to each other, but that the Tanakh is talking to itself. Right? The vision of Isaiah's angels is talking to the vision of Ezikel's angels, because baruch kevod adonai mimkomo comes from Ezikiel's angelic vision, which is very different and also beautiful and intense, and incredible. This line vatisaeni ruach vaeshma kol raash gadol baruch kevod adonai mimkomo, which we have that whole line actually in a different version of the kedushah that is traditionally said at the end of services, where you have these verses interpolated with Aramaic translations like that helps us today but you know, sure, Aramaic translations, it's very helpful. Then a spirit carried me away or there was a great spirit. And behind me, I heard a great roaring sound, blessedis the presence of the Holy One in God's place. And there's the sound of the wings of the creatures beating up against one another says the next verse and their wheels. There's a whole thing in Ezikel about wheels, a wheel and a wheel. And there's a song by Woody Guthrie that this makes me think of, I don't know if either of you know it, Ezekiel saw the wheel way up in the middle of the air. And there's these wheels and this roaring sound. So these visions are very different, but they're talking to each other. And then you have this line from Psalms, that seems like it comes out of nowhere because it's not about angels. Yimloch adonai leolam elohayich tzion. But if you look at Psalm 146 where this comes from, the lines before it might sound familiar, G?d who secures justice for those who are wronged, gives food for the hungry sets prisoners free, adonai pokeach ivrim, adonai zokef kefufim, adonai ohev tzadikim, restoring sight to the blind, making those who are bent stand up, loving the righteous, shomer gerim yatom vealmana yeoded vederech reshaim yeavet, these are beautiful. The Holy One watches over the stranger giving courage to the orphan and widow, but makes the path of the wicked torturous, says the JPS translation which I love. So once again, we have intertext that says, you might just think we are praising G?d because G?d has a big ego. But actually we are praising these qualities of the Holy One, we are setting it apart, we're bringing it back down, in a sense, after all of this talking between the angels and Isaiah in Ezekial, we're saying and this is holiness in the world. This is holiness in the world.

I love I love that. I love that so much. And I think that completes what you were saying about the play acting from before. Also, right? This is like a play in three acts. And the first act was Isaiah's vision. And we have these angels who are doing their thing and we're acting out what the angels are doing. And we're physically lifting ourselves up and doing what the angels were doing. And then we see this Ezekiel response. There's there's sort of these two angelic visions that are happening and we're acting out act 2 where we are experiencing it in the world. Now the angels were up in heaven, but now we're experiencing the fullness of G?d's glory on Earth. And then we get to the Psalms, and we bring it back down to humanity's level. And we talk about physical things that we can see and experience in the world. And so I think you once you get to yimloch adonai leolam, and that's the line that the congregation says all together. The congregation is now a part of the play. And now us as human beings are saying it's no longer in the angels. It's no longer that vision. What we're doing is we're taking this for ourselves, and we're taking that and sanctifying this holiness, and we are calling out to G?d who does all of these things in the world that we see and experience every single day. And now that we've acknowledged that we're bringing this down to earth, we we triple down on that with this next paragraph. We have this sort of taking this tradition for all of our generations. So we're going to read this final conclusion of the of the kedusha together and we'll talk a little bit more about what we noticed in this last paragraph what's sort of happening here at the very end of this kedushah experience so here we go. Ledor vador nagid godlecha ulenezach netzachim kedushatcha nakdish, veshimchacha eloheinu mipinu lo yamush leolam vaed, ki el melech gadol vekadosh atah, baruch atah adonai, hael hakadosh. So, my translation here is we declare Your greatness through all generations, hallow Your Holiness to all eternity. Your praise will never leave our lips for You, our G?d and Sovereign are great and holy. Praised are you Adonai Holy G?d. What are we noticing here? What are we seeing? What are we experiencing?

I'm noticing right now, both here and in all of the kedushah, forever-ness. However that might mean forever and a lot of forever in space forever and time. In the Kadesh we say that we are making the Holy One's name holy baolam, in the world, in opposition to the marom, in the heavens, but olam also means forever, or leolam. And we bring it down to that later, where we say yimloch adonai leolam, forever. So there's forever in space, the universe, the world, and then there's forever in time. And that connects back to the selah, that holding out of that note in atah kadosh. So it has something to do with eternity in all directions, which I love.

And make no mistake about it. It's very in a couple of ways. It's really clear, ledor vador, in every generation netzach netzachim, the eternally eternal, there's really no doubt about what it's trying to convey here. I think that it is now up to us forever.

Yeah, we're really tripling down here we have those three different phrases like you said, ledor vador, ulenetzach netzachim. And then we bring it back at the end to leolam vaed again, back to that original phrase from the Psalms. We're saying this is something that we're going to do and it's not something that we declare once it's something that we declare every day, right? Something that we're going to continue this tradition every every new day is another day towards eternity. Another day that we're calling on this, this promise that we've made this connection, this pact.

And that it has something to do with our with the declaration itself, with it the not keeping it inside but but putting it out there in the world every single day that holiness is going on, wake up everybody.

I really want to read Rabbi Hammer's Romemu Siddur translation, because I'm loving it so much. May we be telling of Your abundance for all generations. Through many ages, may we be part of Your holiness, I love that kedushatcha nakdish, may we be part of your holiness, may Your praise never leave our mouths, for you are the ancient El, the is of our present, and the holy abundance of our future. Blessed, are You, Oh G?d becoming holy. I love that so much. Really swept away by it. I'm gonna say it again, the ancient L the is of our present and the holy abundance of our future.

I love that is of our present. I think that's really great. I know, we haven't gotten to the melody section yet. But one of my favorite melodies for like the holy holy holy line is there's like a lot of really great Christian worship music that takes this verse. And there's like one that says, holy, holy, holy, the Lord G?d Almighty who was and is and is to come, which is a really nice connection of like, Kadosh, Kadosh Kadosh, with the hoo haya vehu hove vehu yihiye, which is for Adon Olam that we can get to eventually. But I think that there's something really powerful and that is of the present. That's really nice.

I want to add one thing, and I have no idea where it goes. But perhaps it goes here, I read a wonderful interpretation from Rabbi Rachel Adler, about us being holy and being capable of such things. And she notices that in Kedoshim, in Leviticus, the people of Israel are enjoined in the Torah to become a people of priests a holy nation. Yet the holiness of humans whenever it says, You shall be holy, for I am holy in Leviticus, is the human part is imperfect and based on behavior and can never approach G?d's holiness. And Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffman says when you see the word Kadosh in Leviticus, when it's spelled without the letter vav it refers to human beings. Whenever we see the word Kadosh, and it relates to G?d, it has that vav in the middle that includes the vav, because G?d's holiness is complete. And I love just that little putting in a letter or a vowel, or leaving it out, in our interpretations changes the meaning of everything, perhaps and it gives us something more to look at.

I love that and it makes it aspirational. Right? This is in future tense. And that makes it aspirational, something to strive for, that we know because we're human beings, and we're not the many winged angels in all of the visions and above. It's not going to be perfect. But just because it's not perfect, it doesn't mean that we don't try. I also think it's interesting that kind of functionally, this paragraph serves as a wrap up as you will a summation of the three blessings that have come before it. We're going back to talking about ancestors like in avot veimahot. We're talking about G?d's glory here in the way that we did in gvurot. And often avot v'imahot, gvurot, and kedushah often seen as a triad, right, as a as a group of three that come together. And that's kind of wraps it all up in a really nice bow. Also, just to point out that the kedushah changes, the text of this changes, and we'll talk about this eventually, it changes in Shabbat, it changes in musaf, it changes on Rosh Hodesh, it changes in all the holidays, it changes so much. And yet there is a core of the angelic visions. And the l'dor vador paragraph is always there unchanged, except for on Rosh Hashanah and yom Kippur in between where it says Hamelech HaKadosh because we're focused on the aspect of G?d that is kingship and order. But other than that, it's always there. And I think that's part of the ledor vador. Can't say for generation to generation, there has to be some sort of constancy, right? It has to always be there. And with that, we'll be right back.

Welcome back, everyone, our dear friend Josh had to run off of the Zoom call to catch a plane to sing joyous, wonderful Jewish music with some lovely folks out in Los Angeles. We wish him great, beautiful travels. And now Ellen and I get to talk about some of our favorite pieces of music inspired by the text of the kedushah. And we're not going to talk about melodies, yet, that we use within prayer, because most of the time, to be honest friends, on a weekday davening we're just going to use the nusach which might go something like this, nekadesh et shimcha baolam, keshem shemakdishim oto bishmei marom, we are just going through it, but we're still doing this really intense thing about the angels. But then on Shabbat, we dig into it more. So when we do the Shabbat episode, we will get into melodies. But I have to say that in terms of songs inspired by this text, there are a lot of versions of ledor vador. Because ledor vador I think has become a phrase meaning not just all generations, but from generation to generation, something about passing along from one generation to the other. And I absolutely love Nefesh Mountain's version of ledor vador, also called and on and on. Even just thinking about it makes me tear up because every time I've heard it, I've cried. To be vulnerable here for a second, uh, Ellen and friends, you know, my, my dad passed away when I was 18. And the song reminds me of him in so many ways. First of all, that he loved bluegrass and country music. And if he had lived long enough to know, Donnie and Eric and see what they're doing, he would have absolutely loved it, he would have absolutely loved this Jewish Americana, he would have been all over that. But it's also literally about fathers and mothers and parents. And then the chorus, it says, the light in us shines on and on. And light isn't just a metaphor in this case. It's the name that he gave me, that I sit with. And so the last time I was in Los Angeles, visiting the grave of my father with his sister Eve, my aunt, we it's it's actually a really beautiful cemetery. It's it's in the rolling hills, and it looks at over a bunch of movie studios, which he would have loved because he loved movies and wanted to be a director before he wanted to be a rabbi. And I said, Could we listen to the song, and we listened to it there. And I cried a little. And we got to share it with him. And it's, it's really, it's really powerful that, that a song like this that somebody else wrote, speaks to me so beautifully. And that's the amazing power of music.

In terms of melodies, and in terms of the phrases, so much of the different versions of kedushah we've talked about today, I go back to that beginning atah kadosh veshimcha kadosh and particularly the phrase kedoshim bechol yom. Because I'm very taken with the idea that I mentioned earlier about things not necessarily having to be special or angelic or amazing, to be considered Kadosh. But when we feel connected when we wake up when we pay attention and we ascribe holiness to something, Kedoshim bechol yom still fascinates me. And so there's a melody that I composed with a niggun about kedoshim bechol yom, and I really went heavy into that idea of kedoshim bechol yom, being everyday instances of kedushah, of holiness.

Well, I can't think of a better practice to end with and inviting our listeners to take a deep breath, be in their space and experience this song as an intention for holiness in our days.

Thanks, Eliana. I'll do it through a couple of times for you or with you, dive in please. Get yourself in a comfortable position perhaps. It's comfortable for you to close your eyes. It goes like this...Perhaps as we continue to sing together, that ukedoshim bechol yom ukedoshim bechol yom, what are some of our everyday holiness-es, and as you sing if you even want to change those words to what you are noticing, to what you're awakened to today, feel free to change the words. I may change a few. I'm gonna leave it blank this last time for you to fill in. Whatever you want.

Sellah, sellah, sellah! Amen, amen, amen! Oh, I am smiling ear to ear. Thank you so much. This was so beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me today!

My pleasure as always Eliana!

Thank you so much to Josh, who was here and will be back with us next time. Thank you so much to Christi Dodge, who edits our podcast. Thank you so much to Yaffa Englander who makes our amazing show notes. By the way again, if you haven't checked out our show notes, right now they live at elianalight.com/podcast. If we say the name of an organization talk about a text or a song, you can find it there. She also runs our social media. Find us on Instagram at the light dot lab. And we will see you again very soon. Thanks everyone!