Ta'anit 16 A "How-To" Guide: Keva and Kavana

Yesterday's daf introduced a long Mishna explaining what the community actually does on fast days.  Today's daf shares the rabbi's varied and creative interpretations of those instructions.  They create a mnemonic to remember the order in which rituals proceed: square, ark, sackcloth, ashes, ashes, cemetery, Moriah.  

Generally speaking, each ritual is explained as demonstrating our feelings of humility and vulnerability in the face of G-d's power.  The rabbis both beg and cajole G-d; they even bribe G-d (with the threat of harming a baby animal in the same way that we are being harmed).  The rabbis also remind us that our most important acts are those that prove we are not continuing to make the same mistakes again.  The sackcloth is important, for example, but not as important as its message, which is to remind us to be humble, without thought of status, and to continue behaving in that way even when we have nice clothing to wear.

Daf (b) focuses on the shofar blasts - the timing of the blasts, the order of the blasts, the meaning of the blasts.  The rabbis focus on both the perfection of this ritual and on the intention of the blower and the listener.  We are to think about repentance; we are not to focus on the visual cues of these rituals.

Every meaningful custom has to weight the power of keva and kavana; of ritual and intention.  Often community members claim that traditional Jews focus too much on the keva.  Others assert that more progressive Jewish movements have too little kavana - all is keva.  I believe that both of these views are incorrect, in general.  Orthodox Jews can have tremendous kavana as they go through the rituals of prayer.  Those physical rituals can trigger and emotional response that is grounded in love and spirit.  Many progressive Jews have great keva, but that keva is non-traditional.  It has been created and developed to meet the needs of each community.  Whether we use the keva of our ancestors or we create keva, we Jews know in our bones that we need structure; we need ritual.  Without ritual, we lose community.  Without community, we lose Judasim.

It struck me during today's daf that our entire tradition is based upon keeping alive a religion that essentially died when the Temple was destroyed.  How bizarre to still practice rituals based on something lost over 2000 years ago!