Kavvana: Directing the Heart in Jewish Prayer, by Rabbi Dr. Seth Kadish (1997)

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2 July 2019 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

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Pedagogical Essays on Jewish Prayer, Davvening

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20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., English Translation, reference works

I am pleased to announce the release of my book Kavvana: Directing the Heart in Jewish Prayer, which was published by Jason Aronson in 1997. The publisher reverted publication rights, and it is now fully available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International license. Here is a link to a full scan of the book.

There are also typed digital versions of the book’s chapters, but they require substantial corrections and updates. I hope to make them available, as time goes on, within an online digital platform that will allow for links to sources, discussion, and ongoing improvements. To do so will require labor—editing, proofreading, checking and linking sources, etc.—so anyone who would like to help make that project a reality is welcome to contact me.

I would like to express my gratitude to Aharon Varady (of the Open Siddur Project) for scanning the book professionally, to Rabbi Hillel Novetsky (of Alhatorah.org) who put me in touch with people who gave helpful advice about getting back the publication rights, and to the publisher for agreeing to revert back the rights.

Seth (Avi) Kadish

Rabbi Dr. Seth (Avi) Kadish teaches medieval Jewish philosophy, history and Bible at Oranim Academic College of Education and in the Overseas School at the University of Haifa. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Haifa (2006), and previously studied at Yeshiva University (where he earned rabbinic ordination and master’s degrees in Bible and Jewish Education). For many years he also taught immigrant soldiers in the Nativ program of the IDF education corps, and adult Israeli Jewish education for the Hebrew University’s Melton School. He lives in Kiryat Motzkin, Israel with his wife and children. He has helped build modern Orthodox Israeli communities that are meant to be open and welcoming to the entire public. Rabbi Kadish is the author of Kavvana: Directing the Heart in Jewish Prayer and The Book of Abraham: Rabbi Shimon ben Zemah Duran and the School of Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi.

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." (Psalms 90:17)