The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 12 September 1990. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 13 September 1990. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 8 May 1990. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 24 April 1990. . . .

“[I’m Spending] Hanukkah in Santa Monica” by Tom Lehrer was first written at the request of Garrison Keillor for his radio show The American Radio Company on which it was performed twice, in 1990 and 1992. The song was later released on the album, Bible & Beyond (Larry Milder, 1999). The first recording of Tom Lehrer singing his song can be heard on The Remains of Tom Lehrer (Disc 3) (2000). In 2022, Tom Lehrer gave an enormous Ḥanukkah present to the world, dedicating his entire oeuvre to the Public Domain including this song. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 6 September 1990. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 1 February 1990. . . .

The Megillah of Esther: An Original English Rendition (set to trop) by Ḥazzan Jack Kessler was first published in 1990. This second “version 2.0” edition was published in 2016. . . .

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Reb Arthur Waskow, and others helped to formulate this grammatically feminine Hebrew blessing for an oleh in their blessing over the Torah reading, in the early years of Congregation Mishkan Shalom in Philadelphia (1988-1983). . . .

It is the responsibility of leadership in every generation to remove stumbling blocks from paths provided for seekers of Hashem. The needs of the faith community have dramatically changed. In our generation, many of the paths to Heaven that used to work very well in the past, don’t work any more. Why is that? For several reasons: . . .

A ceremony for the naming of a baby daughter. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 13 September 1989. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 14 July 1989. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 11 April 1989. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 13 June 1989. . . .

A Proclamation of Fundamental Animal Rights drafted by the West German Green Party in 1989 upon the 200th anniversary of the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” (1789), in German with translations in English, French, and Portuguese. . . .

A discussion of the nature of truth and belief in Jewish liturgical prayer, suggesting that fixed liturgy is less a vehicle for conveying theological or philosophical outcomes than a practice for developing an emotionally religious personality. Shabbat musaf is used as an example. “Meaning What We Pray, Praying What We Mean: The Otherness of the Liturgy” by Rabbi Dr. Joshua Gutoff was first published in Conservative Judaism, Vol. 42(2), Winter 1989-90, pp. 12-20. . . .

The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights (UDAR) was first proclaimed in Paris on 15 October 1978 at the headquarters of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) with the ambition of it being formally adopted in the United Nations General Assembly. The French League of Animal Rights spurred the development of a revised text written during the General Assembly of the International League of Animal Rights, held June 3–4, 1989 in Luxembourg, and adopted on October 21, 1989. The declaration was submitted to the UNESCO Director General in 1990 however it has never been formally adopted. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 29 September 1988. . . .

The “Pledge of Allegiance to the Family of Earth” was offered by the Women’s Foreign Policy Council (co-chaired by Bella Abzug and Mim Kelber). The earliest publication of the pledge that we were able to located is as found in the article, “Earthlings Unite” by Nina Combs in Ms. Magazine, vol. 18:1&2 (July/August 1989), p. 19. . . .

The full text of Rabbi Morris Shmidman’s benediction offered at the Democratic National Convention, July 20th, 1988. . . .

This “Global Pledge of Allegiance” by Edna A. Meisner-Reitz was first published in The Quest, vol. 2, issue 4, Winter 1989 (Theosophical Society of America), back cover. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 14 June 1988. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 17 May 1988. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 25 May 1988. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 4 May 1988. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 20 April 1988. . . .

We name our daughters on their fifteenth day of life. This is based on Vayiqra 12:1-5, which describes the length of a woman’s period of impurity after childbirth. If she gives birth to a son, she is impure for seven days; if she gives birth to a daughter, she is impure for fourteen days. The passage seems to connect the baby boy’s circumcision on the eighth day to the conclusion of the mother’s seven day period of impurity. (Similarly, Vayiqra 22:27 says that a newborn animal must remain with its mother for seven days, and on the eighth day and onward it is acceptable as a sacrificial offering.) It seems, then, that for the first seven days of a little boy’s life, and the first fourteen days of a little girl’s life, the child and mother are still closely linked, and both remain separate from the larger family and community. Then, on the eighth day of her son’s life, and on the fifteenth day of her daughter’s life, the mother begins to rejoin her family and community, and the child too becomes incorporated as a member of the family and community. That is why a baby boy’s father becomes obligated to circumcise his son only on the eighth day, and why the baby boy first receives his name at his brit milah; it is then that the baby boy becomes a member of the community of Israel. On our daughter’s fifteenth day, we come together as a family and as a community to welcome this new member and to give her a name. . . .

This prayer was delivered by the U.S. Navy Chaplain, Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, at the 1987 National Civic Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance, in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. It was first published in Days of remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust: a Department of Defense guide for commemorative observance (Office of the Secretary of Defence, 1988). . . .

The unabridged edition of the Tu biShvat seder haggadah, The Trees are Davvening. . . .

Suggestions for chaplains on offering public prayers in interfaith settings. . . .

Aleinu, as rewritten in Hebrew and English for Ḥavurat Shalom, Somerville, Massachusetts. . . .

The following work was published by a Havurah publication in the late 1970s or early 1980s by Rab Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. In it, Rab Zalman presciently describes a digital database of liturgy and liturgy-related work that havurah groups across the world could use to bring together custom designed and crafted works for use in communal prayer. We are grateful to Reb Zalman for bringing this work to our attention. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 18 June 1986. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 25 February 1986. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 13 November 1985. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 22 October 1985. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 4 June 1985. . . .

This prayer by Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk at the second inauguration of President Ronald Reagan was recorded in the United States’ Congressional Record on January 21, 1985. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 15 April 1985. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 28 March 1985. . . .

The full text of Rabbi Martin Weiner’s invocation offered on the second day of the Democratic National Convention, July 17th, 1984. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 21 June 1984. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 14 June 1984. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 8 March 1984. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 2 April 1984. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 2 June 1983. . . .

This Prayer for Peace by Samuel Avital was composed in January 1984 for a gathering of spiritual teachers from all over the world at Mt. Sinai in March 1984. A month later, the State of Israel would return the Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty. While that event was not documented in any media, the prayer was first published in Four Worlds Journal vol. 2 no. 4, (January 1985), pp. 16-17. Of the event itself, Samuel Avital adds, “I performed there some of my mime performances like Jacob & Angel, Black & White and others.” The prayer for peace is included in Samuel Avital’s Passover Haggadah (2021). . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 12 May 1983. . . .

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 11 April 1983. . . .