Family Ceremony for the Consecration of a New Home (CCAR 1951)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Unknown and Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR]

Shared on:

4 April 2026 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, dedications and consecrations, English vernacular prayer, Post–World War II economic expansion

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Standing before a table on which are placed lighted candles, a loaf of bread, table salt, a cup of wine, a Bible, and a Mezuzah, the head of the family reads the following Service:
	Our God and God of our fathers, grant that we may consecrate this new home of ours with humble and grateful hearts. By Thy will we live and toil; by Thy grace we prosper and rejoice. We labor in vain when we labor without Thee; we build on shifting sand when Thou are not our Rock. In Thy goodness Thou dost bless us and cause us to dwell in comfort and peace. We give thanks unto Thee for Thine unfailing love and ever-watchful care.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה׃	Praised be Thou, O Lord, our God, Ruler of the world, who hast kept us in life, sustained us and brought us to this happy day.
	[Read:] “O Worship the King”^[1] A poem by Robert Grant, popularly sung as a hymn. A rendition of the hymn was included within the Union Hymn Book (CCAR 1914).
	Responsive Reading
	O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good; For His mercy endureth forever. (Psalms 136:1)
	Happy is everyone that revereth the Lord, That walketh in His ways. When thou eateth the labor of thy hands, Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. (Psalms 128:1-2)
	Except the Lord build the house, They labor in vain that build it. (Psalms 127:1)
	I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart, I will set no base thing before mine eyes. (Psalms 101:2-3)
	He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house; He that speaketh falsehood shall not be established before mine eyes. (Psalms 101:7)
	The wicked are overthrown, and are not; But the house of the righteous shall stand. (Proverbs 12:7)
	From of old our homes have been the dwelling place of the Jewish spirit. Within their walls our fathers built altars of faith and love. There they maintained the habit of daily devotion; there they prepared a table for the stranger and the needy.
	Grant, O God, that we, too, may hallow our home with devout thoughts and kindly acts. Give us the will, we pray Thee, to keep alive at our fireside the glow of simple piety and generous hospitality.
	The loaf is cut into pieces which are dipped in salt and distributed; then, the blessing is said.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם הַמוֹצִיא לֶֽחֶם מִן הָאֲרֶץ׃	Praised be Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the world, who causest the earth to yield food for all.
	(Lifting wine-cup) Wine is the symbol of joy. “Wine rejoiceth the heart of man” (Psalms 104:15) He who ordains life has made all the things that give us happiness. He has also established the home as the source of our deepest joys.
	We pray Thee, O God, that in our home love may reign and simple pleasures abound. Preserve in us devotion to virtue and simplicity, and enable us to spend our days in contentment, happiness and peace.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָּפֶן.	Praised be Thou, O Lord, our God, Ruler of the world, who hast created the fruit of the vine.
	(Holding Bible) This is the Law by which Israel has ever lived. It teaches us that man doth not live by bread only, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
	We thank Thee, O God, for this Book of the Law, which Thou hast placed in our keeping for the good of all mankind. May it ever be a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path. Give us understanding, that we keep Thy law and observe it with our whole heart. Implant in us a love of Torah, that we may treasure it more than gold and silver, and take great delight in the study of its teachings.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֺתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה׃	Praised be Thou, O Lord, our God, Ruler of the world, who hast sanctified us by Thy Commandments and ordained that we occupy ourselves with the words of the Law.
	If a Mezuzah is affixed, turn to the Book of Deuteronomy and read from the scriptural passages inscribed on the parchment within the Mezuzah case— Deuteronomy 6:4-9, and Deuteronomy 11:13-21.
	(Raising the Mezuzah) This ancient symbol of the Mezuzah speaks, then, to us of the One God, of our need to love Him and to obey His Law. We affix the Mezuzah to the doorpost of our home that it may ever remind us of our divine nature and of the sacred duties of life. We have God in our hearts when our home thus bears witness to His holy presence.
	Thou, O God, art our guardian and protector. Into Thy hands we commit our lives and destiny. Whatever may befall us, we shall not fear nor be dismayed; for Thou art with us. In Thee we trust; from Thee comes our strength; with Thee alone is the power to save.
	The Mezuzah is fastened to the door-post and the following blessing is recited:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לִקְבֹּעַ מְזוּזָה׃	Praised be Thou, O Lord, our God, Ruler of the world, who hast sanctified us by Thy Commandments and ordained that we affix the Mezuzah.
	Anthem: America

“Family Ceremony for the Consecration of a New Home” is the first ritual ceremony found in the “Family Worship” section of the Union Home Prayer Book (CCAR 1951), pp. 7-11. Unfortunately, as with so many of the prayers published as a result of CCAR committees from this period and earlier, we cannot yet attribute this prayer to any known author. (If you know, please leave a comment or contact us.)

Source(s)

Notes

Notes
1	A poem by Robert Grant, popularly sung as a hymn. A rendition of the hymn was included within the Union Hymn Book (CCAR 1914).

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.)

Unknown

Sometimes the best we can do in attributing a historical work is to indicate the period and place it was written, the first prayer book it may have been printed in, or the archival collection in which the manuscript was found. We invite the public to help to attribute all works to their original composers. If you know something not mentioned in the commentary offered, please leave a comment or contact us.

Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR]

The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada.

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=66973

Associated Image:

Typical houses in San Leandro, California, 1942 (credit: Russell Lee)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Aharon N. Varady (transcription), Unknown and Central Conference of American Rabbis [CCAR].
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=66973>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

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)

Family Ceremony for the Consecration of a New Home (CCAR 1951)

Source(s)

Read a comment / Leave a comment (moderated)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply