This is “A Prayer for the Government” by Rabbi Dr. Louis Ginzberg, as found in Festival Prayer Book, edited by Jacob Kohn and Maurice H. Farbridge (1927), p.200, and in The Respona of Professor Louis Ginzberg, ed. D. Golinkin (1996). This is a new translation (2010) by Tim Daniel Bernard, closely following the the original Hebrew Prayer.

In his article “Conservative Prayerbooks” written for the Jewish Spectator in 1976, Dr. Eric Friedland had this to say about the Festival Prayer Book and Louis Ginzburg’s Prayer for the Government:

The Festival Prayerbook (1927, under the auspices of the United Synagogue of America), the first publication to bear the stamp of the Conservative Movement, shared not a few of the characteristics of the liturgical productions of Britain’s Orthodox United Synagogue, the Authorized Daily Prayerbook and various mahzorim, noted for their neat and orderly layout, textual accuracy, and judicious curtailment of piyyutim. The early disciples of Solomon Schechter, who himself had spent some time in Cambridge before he came and settled in New York to put the then-teetering Jewish Theological Seminary on its feet, were not impervious to the neo-classical trend of the nineteenth-century Anglo-Catholic Tractarians of the Church of England. While the elevated, formal “high-church” tone of the Festival Prayerbook has long since been supplanted, many of that prayerbook’s meticulous standards have been retained. One innovation that has perdured is Professor Louis Ginzberg’s Prayer for the Government. The entreaty is patriotic in the best sense of the term with scarce a trace of jingoism. Its longevity is warranted.

In his review, Dr. Friedland was speaking specifically of Ginzberg’s original Hebrew liturgy. The prayer was republished with slightly altered Hebrew text in Seder Tefilot Yisrael: Sabbath and Festival Prayer Book, compiled by the Rabbinical Assembly & United Synagogue of America (1946) p.130, and in Sim Shalom (1985) p.414-415. The translation of the prayer as found in Sim Shalom was read into the Congressional Record (vol. 140, no. 16, Wednesday 23 February 1994) by Rabbi Paul D. Kerbel of Congregation Nevey Shalom, Bowie, Maryland on 1994. (There is also a delightful recording of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, z”l, offering it at Congregation Beth El in Bethesda, Maryland, on October 3rd, 2013.)

A new English translation of Louis Ginzberg’s Prayer for the Government was the main impetus behind Rabbi Tim Bernard’s contribution. As Rabbi Bernard explains:

This translation is more straightforward, less archaic, and much closer to original Hebrew than the traditional translation found in Conservative prayer books published between 1927 and 2005.

Source

Recordings

“תְּפִלָּה בְּעַד הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה | Prayer for the Government, by Rabbi Dr. Louis Ginzberg (1927)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Tim Bernard (translation)

Tim Daniel Bernard is Director of Digital Learning and Engagement at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Previously, he was the Community Manager at Seeking Alpha and Grants and Communications Manager at PELIE, having taught Humash and Rabbinics at the Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn for two years. He was also Kollel Fellow for a year at Yeshivat Hadar. Tim was ordained at JTS in 2009, where he also graduated from the Graduate School with an MA in Talmud & Rabbinics. He grew up in London and earned an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Bristol, which he followed with a year of learning at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. While in Britain, he was involved for many years in the annual Limmud Conference, as both participant and organizer. Tim is an active member of Kehilat Hadar, where he gives regular divrei Torah (many of which can be found on this site), and co-chaired the Shavuot Retreat in 2011. He is married to Rabbi Ashira Konigsburg, with whom he enjoys traveling, hiking and visiting modern art galleries.

Louis Ginzberg

Rabbi Louis Ginzberg (Hebrew: לוי גינצבורג‎, Levy Gintzburg) was a Talmudist and leading figure in the Conservative Movement of Judaism of the twentieth century. He was born on November 28, 1873, in Kaunas, Vilna Governorate (then called Kovno). Ginzberg was born into a religious family whose piety and erudition was well known. The family traced its lineage back to the revered talmudist, halachist, and kabbalist Gaon of Vilna. Ginzberg emulated the Vilna Gaon’s intermingling of ‘academic knowledge’ in Torah studies under the label ‘historical Judaism’. In his book Students, Scholars and Saints, Ginzberg quotes the Vilna Gaon instructing, “Do not regard the views of the Shulchan Aruch as binding if you think that they are not in agreement with those of the Talmud.” Ginzberg first arrived in America in 1899, unsure where he belonged or what he should pursue. Almost immediately, he accepted a position at Hebrew Union College and subsequently wrote articles for the Jewish Encyclopedia. In 1903, he began teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in New York City, where he taught until his death. He died on November 11, 1953, in New York City. (via his article in wikipedia).

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "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