A Prayer for Peace After War, by Norman Corwin (1945)

Name: A Prayer for Peace After War, by Norman Corwin (1945)
Uploaded: 2021-05-14T11:34:21-08:00
Channel: Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)
Description: A prayer for peace from the end of World War II.

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Norman Corwin

Shared on:

14 May 2021 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

National Brotherhood Week, Memorial/Decoration Day (last Monday of May)

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., World War Ⅱ

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Lord God of trajectory and blast Whose terrible sword has laid open the serpent So it withers in the sun for the just to see, Sheathe now the swift avenging blades with the names of nations writ on it, And assist in the preparation of the ploughshare.
	Lord God of fresh bread and tranquil mornings, Who walks in the circuit of heaven among the worthy, Deliver notice to the fallen young men That tokens of orange juice and a whole egg appear now before the hungry children; That night again falls cooling on the earth as quietly as when it leaves your hand; That Freedom has withstood the tyrant like a Malta in a hostile sea, And that the soul of man is surely a Sevastopol which goes down hard and leaps from ruins quickly.
	Lord God of the topcoat and the living wage Who has furred the fox against the time of winter And stored provender of bees in summer’s brightest places, Do bring sweet influences to bear upon the assembly line: Accept the smoke of the milltown among the accredited clouds of the sky: Fend from the wind with a house and a hedge, him whom you made in your image: And permit him to pick of the tree and the flock, That he may eat today without fear of tomorrow And clothe himself with dignity in December.
	Lord God of test-tube and blueprint Who jointed molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam, Who taught worms and stars how they could live together, Appear now among the parliaments of conquerors and give instruction to their schemes. Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer for his father’s color or the credo of his choice. Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those who profit by postponing it pretend. Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of little peoples through expected straits, And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come for longer than posterities can see ahead, That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.
	Amen.

This “Prayer for Peace” by Norman Corwin was first published in On a Note of Triumph the most listened to radio drama of all time. The drama marked the end of World War II in Europe. It appeared, with very small changes, in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951), p.103-105 — as one of a collection of civic prayers and readings for Memorial Day in the United States. The last stanza was included in Shaarei Tefila: Gates of Prayer, The New Union Prayerbook (1975). –Aharon Varady

Recordings

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. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“A Prayer for Peace After War, by Norman Corwin (1945)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (editing/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.)

Norman Corwin

Norman Lewis Corwin (May 3, 1910 – October 18, 2011) was a Jewish-American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing. His earliest and biggest successes were in the writing and directing of radio drama during the 1930s and 1940s.

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Works of related interest:

prayer for the United States (Julius Kleinl 1951) - cropped

Prayer for the United States during the Cold War, by Julius Klein (Jewish War Veterans of the USA, 1951)

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Samuel Thurman on 26 February 1945

still-frame of Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn's Eulogy at Iwo Jima: "The Highest and Purest Democracy" (via the National WW II Museum)

💬 Iwo Jima Memorial Address at Fifth Marine Division Cemetery, by Rabbi Chaplain Roland B. Gittelsohn (21 March 1945)

prayer for US Armed Forces (Dudley Weinberg, AMVETS 1951) - cropped

Prayer for the United States after World War Ⅱ, by Rabbi Dudley Weinberg (AMVETS, ca. 1947)

[Children’s] Prayer for a Youth Service during World War Ⅱ, by Lilian Helen Montagu (11 April 1942)

"Cold Harbor, Va. African Americans collecting bones of soldiers killed in the battle. April 1865." (credit: Reekie, John, photographer, compiled by Hirst D. Milhollen and Donald H. Mugridge; license: PD)

“That America’s Heroes Shall Not Have Died in Vain” with a special El Malé Raḥamim prayer for Memorial Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1945)

An American Covenant of Brotherhood, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and Eugene Kohn (1945)

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On a Note of Triumph, cover art Columbia Records

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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