Contributor(s): Shared on: 16 June 2026 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication Categories: Tags:
Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Louis Wolsey, D.D., Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sponsor: n/a
Date of Prayer: 8 February 1940
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O Thou God of all the peoples of the world,
in whose hands
are the fate
and the destiny
of the children of men,
and before whom
all the families of the earth
are as one brotherhood,
we come to Thee to ask
that Thy spirit may rest upon this Congress,
that forth from this place may go those influences
that shall make for justice
and for freedom. | |
Do Thou consecrate us, O God,
unto freedom,
that liberty to speak and to do,
not in whispers
but loudly and with courage,
to know and to think,
to toil and to be rewarded,
and to share with our neighbor
and with our world. | |
Dedicate this House, O God,
to Thy Divine truths
and Thy Divine laws,
and when the nations stir up
wrath against one another
do Thou cause this great House
to be an instrumentality for peace. | |
Bless the Speaker of this House
and restore him to health
and to his responsibility. | |
Bless all the officers of this great Nation
that they may rule and guide
in justice
and in peace. | |
And finally, O God,
do Thou establish the work of their hands,
yea, the work of their hands establish Thou it.
Amen. |
This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the second month of the second session of the 76th US House of Representatives, and published in the Congressional Record, vol. 86 part 2 (8 February 1940), pp. 1230-1231. Source(s) “Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Louis Wolsey on 8 February 1940” is shared through the Open Siddur Project under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication.
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.)  Louis Wolsey (1877–1953), born in in Midland, Michigan, was a Reform movement rabbi in the United States. He graduated from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1894 and from the University of Cincinnati in 1899. That same year he was ordained by HUC after which he took the pulpit of Congregation B'nai Israel (Little Rock, Arkansas). In 1907, he became rabbi of Anshe Chesed Congregation (Cleveland, Ohio). In 1925, he came to serve Congregation Rodeph Shalom (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). Rabbi Wolsey took post-graduate courses at the University of Chicago, Western Reserve University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He received an honorary D.D. degree from Hebrew Union College in 1939. While living in Little Rock, he was a member of the board of education from 1906 to 1907 and chaplain general of the Arkansas State Guard in 1906. In Cleveland, he was a member of the Charter Commission in 1920 and president of the Cleveland Society of Sociology from 1922 to 1923. When he was in Philadelphia, he was chairman of the Mayor's Vice and Crime Commission in 1937 and recommended the state of Pennsylvania reform the parole system. He served as president of the Hebrew Union College Alumni Association from 1913 to 1914, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) from 1925 to 1927, chancellor of the Jewish Chautauqua Society from 1925 to 1938, a charter member of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, chairman of the CCAR Committee on the Union Hymmal (which published a revision in 1936), and a co-founder of the Leo N. Levi Memorial Hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In 1942 he was part of a group of rabbis who opposed the CCAR's resolution for the establishment of a Palestinian Jewish military unit. He became vice-president of the American Council for Judaism but resigned in 1946 to protest its opposition towards unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine. He resigned from the Council itself in 1948 demanding that the Council itself be dissolved finding it irreligious and anti-humanitarian in the face of Jewish refugees after the Holocaust. The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Printing Office and issued when Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. Statutory authorization for the Congressional Record is found in Chapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Code. ( wikipedia)
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