Mother's Day (2nd Sunday of May) • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶקְט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ

This is an archive of prayer for (or relevant to) Mother’s Day, an annual civic day celebrated in the United States on the second Sunday in May. Mother’s Day recognizes mothers, motherhood and maternal bonds in general, as well as the positive contributions that they make to their families and society.
During the 19th century, women’s peace groups in the United States tried to establish holidays and regular activities in favor of peace and against war. A common early activity was the meeting of groups of mothers whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War. There were several limited observances in the 1870s and the 1880s but none achieved resonance beyond the local level. At the time, Protestant Christian schools in the United States already held many celebrations and observations such as Children’s Day, Temperance Sunday, Roll Call Day, Decision Day, Missionary Day and others. In New York City, Julia Ward Howe led a “Mother’s Day for Peace” anti-war observance on June 2, 1872, which was accompanied by a “Appeal to womanhood throughout the world” (nowadays known as Mother’s Day Proclamation). The observance continued in Boston for about 10 years under Howe’s personal sponsorship, then died out. In these celebrations, mothers all around the world would work towards world peace.
In 1868, Ann Jarvis, organized a committee to establish a “Mother’s Friendship Day”, the purpose of which was “to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War.” Ann Jarvis, who had previously organized Mother’s Day Work Clubs to improve sanitation and health for both Union and Confederate encampments undergoing a typhoid outbreak, wanted to expand these into an annual memorial for mothers, but she died in 1905. The annual celebration was ultimately established by her daughter Ann’s daughter, Anna Jarvis, in 1908.
☞ If you have composed a prayer for Mother’s Day, please share it.
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For prayers offered composed for, or relevant to, Yom ha-Ém in the State of Israel, go here.
For prayers offered composed for, or relevant to, International Women’s Day, go here.

תחינה לחזק ידינו במצוות ”כיבוד אב ואם“ ביחס לאמנו, האדמה | A prayer for strengthening our commitment to the commandment of “Honoring our Parents” in relation to Mother Earth, by Rabbi Gila Caine

Contributor(s):

Gila Caine

This teḥinah calls us to remember that we are all personally, as well as communally, responsible for our relationship with the Earth. It also calls us to action, and to recall that even small actions realigning ourselves with the work of the Earth, can be seen as a mitsvah. . . .

שֵׁשׁ אִמָּהוֹת | Shesh Imahot (Six Matriarchs) — Sarah, Rivqah, Raḥel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah, as found in rabbinic sources

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady

I find it important to remind myself, when there is an opportunity to do so in Jewish liturgy, that there are six matriarchs of the children of Israel recognized together as the “shesh imahot” in rabbinic sources: Sarah, Rivqah, Leah, Raḥel, Bilhah, and Zilpah. This is important to me because it is important to recognize that while the Jewish people are famously endogamous, we must also remain open, honest, and respectful of our ancestors who connected to our people through exogamous relationships. . . .

תפילה למעמד המשותף | أغنية الحياة والسلام | Prayer of Mothers for Life and Peace, by Sheikha Ibtisam Maḥameed & Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum

Contributor(s):

Amichai Lau-Lavie (translation), Tamar Elad-Appelbaum and Sheikha Ibtisam Maḥameed

A prayer in Hebrew and Arabic (with translations in English and German) of solidarity of mothers for there to be peace in the world for the sake of their children. . . .

א תְּחִנָה פאר א שׂטיףּ מוטער | A Tkhine for a Stepmother (from Shas Tkhine Ḥadashah, 1922)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Unknown Author(s)

This is a faithful transcription of the א תְּחִנָה פאר א שטיף מוטער (“A Tkhine for a Stepmother”) which first appeared in ש״ס תחנה חדשה (Shas Tkhine Ḥadasha), a collection of tkhines published by Ben-Zion Alfes in Vilna, 1922. . . .

For All Mothers, a prayer by Rev. Walter Rauschenbusch adapted by Rabbi Morris Lazaron (1918)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription), Morris Samuel Lazaron and Walter Rauschenbusch

“For the Mothers,” a variation of the prayer by Rev. Walter Rauschenbusch, is found adapted (without Christian god-language) by Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron in his World War Ⅰ era prayerbook, Side Arms: Readings, Prayers and Meditations for Soldiers and Sailors (1918), on page 26. The original version of the prayer was first published in For God and the People: Prayers of the Social Awakening (Walter Rauschenbusch 1910), pp. 85-86. . . .

Am Grabe der Mutter | At the grave of one’s mother, a teḥinah by Lise Tarlau (1907)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription), Aharon N. Varady (translation) and Lise Tarlau

“Am Grabe der Mutter” by Lisa Tarlau can be found in Rabbi Max Grunwald’s anthology of Jewish women’s prayer, Beruria: Gebet- und Andachtsbuch für jüdische Frauen und Mädchen (1907), pages 540-541. . . .

דער נײער קאָלאסוס | The New Collosus, a paean to the Shekhinah/”Mother of Exiles” by Emma Lazarus (1883, Yiddish translation by Rachel Kirsch Holtman 1938)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription), Rachel Kirsch Holtman (translation) and Emma Lazarus

This is the sonnet, “The New Collosus” (1883) by Emma Lazarus set side-by-side with its Yiddish translation by Rachel Kirsch Holtman. Lazarus famously penned her sonnet in response to the waves of Russian-Jewish refugees seeking refuge in the Unites States of America as a result of murderous Russian pogroms following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Her identification and revisioning of the Statue of Liberty as the Mother of Exiles points to the familiar Jewish identification of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence, in its feminine aspect) with the light of the Jewish people in their Diaspora. . . .

[Prayer] at a Mother’s Grave, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Moritz Mayer

A prayer for a daughter mounrning at the grave of her mother. . . .

Am Grabe der Großmutter | At the grave of one’s grandmother, a teḥinah by Yehoshua Heshil Miro (1835)

Contributor(s):

Andreas Rusterholz (transcription), Aharon N. Varady (translation) and Yehoshua Heshil Miro

“Am Grabe der Großmutter” was translated/adapted by Yehoshua Heshil Miro and published in his anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaischer Religion. It first appears in the 1835 edition as teḥinah №120 on pp. 230-231. . . .

Am Grabe der Mutter | At the grave of one’s mother, a teḥinah by Yehoshua Heshil Miro (1835)

Contributor(s):

Andreas Rusterholz (transcription), Aharon N. Varady (translation) and Yehoshua Heshil Miro

“Am Grabe der Mutter” was translated/adapted by Yehoshua Heshil Miro and published in his anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaischer Religion. It first appears in the 1835 edition as teḥinah №118 on pp. 227-228. . . .

Andachtsübung einer Mutter | Devotional exercise of a mother, a teḥinah by Yehoshua Heshil Miro (1829)

Contributor(s):

Andreas Rusterholz (transcription), Aharon N. Varady (translation) and Yehoshua Heshil Miro

“Andachtsübung einer Mutter” was translated/adapted by Yehoshua Heshil Miro and published in his anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaischer Religion. It first appears in the 1829 edition, תחנות Teḥinot ein Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauenzimmer mosaischer Religion as teḥinah №73 on pp. 107-110. In the 1835 edition, it appears as teḥinah №74 on pp. 130-133. In the 1842 edition, it appears as teḥinah №77 on pp.135-138. . . .

Gebet einer Stiefmutter | Prayer of a stepmother, a teḥinah by Yehoshua Heshil Miro (1829)

Contributor(s):

Andreas Rusterholz (transcription), Aharon N. Varady (translation) and Yehoshua Heshil Miro

“Gebet einer Stiefmutter” was translated/adapted by Yehoshua Heshil Miro and published in his anthology of teḥinot, בית יעקב (Beit Yaaqov) Allgemeines Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauen mosaischer Religion. It first appears in the 1829 edition, תחנות Teḥinot ein Gebetbuch für gebildete Frauenzimmer mosaischer Religion as teḥinah №82 on pp. 129-131. In the 1835 edition, it appears as teḥinah №82 on pp. 151-154. In the 1842 edition, it appears as teḥinah №85 on pp. 156-159. . . .

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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