Wishing ourselves a sweet new year: intention in the Jewish tradition

DEBORAH MAYAAN
Special to the AJP

At Rosh Hashanah we dip apples and challah in honey for a sweet new year and wish each other a good year. While these acts resonate with some ideas in popular spiritual literature on setting intentions, in our tradition, Rosh Hashanah has always seemed a particularly good time for us to set more specific intentions about how we’d like our lives to unfold.
It’s a much better time than New Year’s Eve, says Rabbi Helen T. Cohn of Congregation Chaverim. Instead of making short-lived resolutions about, say, going on a diet, people are better able to set meaningful intentions about the course of their lives during the more soulful High Holy Days.
At the same time, we need to ask “what’s the follow-up?” and take action, says Cohn. And while our lives are more likely to go in the right direction when we set intentions, we need to realize we can’t control everything. The Hebrew word kavanah is often translated as “intention” or “intentionality,” to do something with focus and purpose. The kavanah of prayer is as important as the words, says Cohn. Our rabbis recognized that routinely saying the same prayers over and over could become rote. Kavanah is needed to bring meaning to those prayers; our meaning right now may differ from when they are said the next day, says Cohn.
The High Holy Days offer special opportunities to increase our intentionality, says Cohn. This starts before Rosh Hashanah. During the month of Elul that precedes the High Holy Days, we start setting our sights, she says, like an archer preparing to shoot, who examines the terrain and feels the heft of the bow. We intend that our experiences during the Days of Awe be meaningful rather than mechanical.
Late night Selichot services are meant to heighten our awareness of the thoughtfulness of the Days of Awe, says Cohn. The shofar wakes us up on Rosh Hashanah, and the Yom Kippur service has several ways to help us keep focused, such as the physical beating of the breast during the penitential Ashamnu and Al Cheyt prayers. This acts like a defibrillator to wake up our hearts, says Cohn.
Prostrating ourselves during the Yom Kippur service, notes Rabbi Israel Becker of Congregation Chofetz Chayim, recalls the one day on which the  Kohen Gadol (high priest) would go into the Holy of Holies in the Temple and recite the 72 letter name of G-d. Everyone outside would bow and lie prostrate. This takes place during the Avodah, which translates as “service.” We approach the High Holy Days with the understanding that “we are totally, absolutely 100 percent in the hands of G-d,” says Becker. “With that in mind, we come to G-d in prayer.”
After recognizing our sanctity and holiness as a people, we then aim to excel in our service of G-d, in our personal development, in working on our character traits, in generating love for our fellow Jews, and in coming closer to G-d through prayer and observance of the commandments, says Becker.
Rosh Hashanah is a covenant renewal ceremony to help us come closer to living life as G-d wants us to live — to live our lives with focus and purpose, says Rabbi Robert Eisen of Congregation Anshei Israel. “Make the most of it,” he says. “If a person finds the smallest spark in what they are doing for the High Holy Days, why not flame it?”
In daily practice, intention is a very important part of what it is to live as a Jew according to “the mitzvah system” — the series of mitzvot to fulfill, says Eisen. We are to live our lives for the sake of Heaven, for something greater than ourselves. None of us can “be in the zone,” aware of our connection to G-d, all the time, he says; sometimes we simply act to fulfill our immediate needs. But when some actions are done with purpose, then even habitual actions can take on greater meaning.
When our first words of the day are the Modeh Ani prayer traditionally said upon awakening, we are setting our intentions for the day in gratefulness, says Rabbi Stephanie Aaron, also of Congregation Chaverim. Even if five minutes later, her thoughts go in other directions, those first words bring her back, says Aaron. In particular she thinks of  she’he’khezarta  — how a person’s soul is returned upon awakening. The awareness of having a  neshamah (an aspect of the soul) guides her actions. It is an “awesome responsibility,” says Aaron.
In order to achieve good results from our intentions, we need the right intensity as well as right direction, says Rabbi Joseph S. Weizenbaum, in retirement after serving Congregation Ner Tamid. He, too, compares it to shooting an arrow, which requires both good aim and enough strength.
Another aspect of intention is that it can’t be used as a defense such as saying “I didn’t mean to say ...,” says Weizenbaum. “All I know is what you did.” When thinking about how words can be used to deceive, he draws wisdom from what he was taught in basketball — not to look at another player’s hands or head, but instead to “watch where the feet are going.”
At the same time, words are very important in Judaism. This is because the world’s creation took place with language, says Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon of Temple Emanu-El. In the morning prayers, we say  Baruch she’amar v’hayah ha’olam — “Praised is the one who spoke and the world came into being.” In the Sefer Yetzirah, a key kabbalistic text, G-d creates the world out of the Hebrew letters themselves. So creation takes place not with speech, but rather “it’s the intention behind speech,” says Cohon.
The first passage of Talmud that is studied is about the need to prepare the heart and clear the mind before saying the Shema. This parallels the kavanah for the High Holy Days, which is summed up in a Chasidic teaching, says Cohon: “I pray for the ability to pray.”
Deborah Mayaan is a writer and energy work and flower essence practitioner based in Tucson. "http://www.deborahmayaan.com"