.z©r «©C m ¨c ¨` §l o¥pFg d ¨Y ©` .d¨pi ¦A WFp¡`¤l c ¥O©l §nE
d ¨Y ©` You favour human beings with knowledge, and teach mortals understanding. After Shabbat or a festival ends add: You have favoured us with intelligence to study Your Torah and taught us to perform the laws You desire, and have made a distinction, our Living God, between the holy and the everyday, between light and darkness, between Israel and other peoples, between the seventh day and the six working days. Source of our life and our Sovereign, make the days before us begin with peace, free from all sin and innocent of all guilt and bound to You in awe. And ... favour us with the knowledge, understanding and discernment that come from You. Blessed are You God, who favours us with knowledge. Ep«¥ai ¦W£d Turn us back to Your teaching, our Creator, and draw us near to Your service, our Sovereign. Bring us back in perfect repentance to Your presence. Blessed are You God, who desires repentance. g©l §q Forgive us, our Creator, for we have sinned; pardon us, our Sovereign, for we have disobeyed; for You are a God who is good and forgiving. Blessed are You God, who is generous to forgive. o¥pFg d ¨Y ©` You favour ... This first blessing of the daily petitions places a powerful emphasis on the Jewish belief in knowledge and understanding as spiritual paths. Da’at is experiential knowledge; binah is discernment, the ability to distinguish and discriminate; haskel is the power to reason things out. The language directly echoes the story in Genesis where Adam and Eve have to leave the Garden of Eden having eaten of the ‘tree of knowledge’. Instead of understanding this as a ‘fall from grace’, this knowledge is seen as an act of grace, a gift granted by God, something for ‘Adam’, for all of humanity.
L«¤z ¨xFY r ©C ©n §l Ep«¨Y §p©pFg d ¨Y ©` L«¤pFv §x i ¥T ªg zFU£r©l Ep «¥c §O©l §z ©e W ¤c «rw oi ¥A Epi«¥Grl¡` dedi l ¥C §a ©Y ©e l ¥` ¨x §U ¦i oi ¥A K ¤:r «g §l xF` oi ¥A lFg §l z ¤W «¥W §l i ¦ri ¦a §X ©d mFi oi ¥A mi ¦O©r¨l l ¥g ¨d Ep«¥M §l ©n Epi «¦a ¨` :d ¤U£r ©O ©d i ¥n §i Ep«¥z` ¨x §w ¦l mi ¦` ¨A ©d mi ¦n¨I ©d Epi«¥l¨r mFl ¨W §l mi ¦kEU£g mi ¦Tªp §nE ` §h ¥gÎlÇoM ¦n ... §e . L«¤z ¨` §x ¦i §A mi ¦w ¨A ªc §nE ore ¨rÎlÇoM ¦n .l ¥M §U ©d §e d¨pi ¦aE d¨r ¥C L §Y ¦` ¥n Ep«¥P Çog :z©r «¨C ©d o¥pFg .dedi d ¨Y ©` KEx ¨A Ep«¥a §x ¨w §e .L«¤z ¨xFz §l Epi«¦a ¨` Ep«¥ai ¦W£d Ep «¥xi ¦f£g ©d §e .L«¤z ¨cFa£r ©l Ep«¥M §l ©n KEx ¨A .Li«¤p ¨t §l d ¨n¥l §W d ¨aEW §z ¦A :d ¨aEW §z ¦A d¤vFx ¨d .dedi d ¨Y ©` l ©g §n .Ep`«¨h ¨g i ¦M Epi«¦a ¨` Ep«¨l g©l §q l ¥` i ¦M .Ep §r «¨W ¨t i ¦M Ep«¥M §l ©n Ep«¨l d ¨Y ©` KEx ¨A .d ¨Y«¨` g¨N ©q §e aFh : ©g «rl §q ¦l d¤A §x ©O ©d oEP ©g .dedi Epi«¦a ¨` Ep«¥ai ¦W£d Turn us back ... With knowledge comes our awareness of our distance from God. We ask to return to the Torah, the teaching of God that is the basis of Jewish self–understanding and wisdom, and to the avodah , both the religious ‘service’ we perform as a community and the spiritual ‘work’we need to do on ourselves. The blessing concludes with the affirmation that God desires our teshuvah ,‘return’. Ep«¨l g©l §q Forgive us ... The conclusion of the last blessing leads to the realisation that as we seek to return to
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