Resources shared under CC0 (PD) — 🖖︎ Prayers & Praxes← Back to License Index A meditation on the life and person of Mosheh Rabbeinu for the 7th of Adar. A prayer for a mother on the day of her son’s circumcision. A prayer for a young woman on her Bat Mitsvah on becoming responsible for observing her mitsvot. The opening prayer offered by Rabbi Dr. Isaac Mayer Wise, in his role as guest chaplain before the 74th New York State Senate on 24 June 1851, and published under the header, “Albany” in The Asmonean (11 July 1851), on page 5. The prayer is one of the earliest offered by a rabbi before a state legislature in the United States. This prayer and “A Prayer for Knowledge of the Messiah” were published as “Two Short Prayers” with a lengthy introduction probably penned by Isaac Leeser in the Occident 9:5, Ab 5611/August 1851, p.253-255. Rosa Emma Salaman’s “Prayer for Daily Guidance” was written December 20, 1851 and published in the Occident 10:2, Iyar 5612/May 1852, p. 85. 226. An opening prayer offered by the guest chaplain before the Virginia House of Delegates (1849-1850 legislative session) in the week of January 15-18, 1850, and published in The Richmond Enquirer (25 January 1850), p. 1. An original prayer for the government of the United States, Ohio, and the city of Cincinnati by Rabbi H.A. Henry was published in an article, “Emendation of the Liturgy” in The Asmonean (21 June 1850), p. 6. This is a prayer for those fallen in the battle of Kápolna, a decisive battle during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, written by István Roboz (1826-1916). Translated into numerous languages, the prayer was widely misattributed to enlightened president of Hungary, Lajos Kossuth. Circulated in translation and attributed to Kossuth, the prayer helped to cement his popularity among Jews worldwide praying for liberty from despotic regimes inclined for various reasons towards Jew hatred. Three stanzas adapted from “Worship” by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), appears as hymn number 73: “The Peace of Pity” in Rabbi Max Klein’s hymn book for Congregation Adath Jeshurun, Philadelphia, Hymns of Prayer and Praise (1926). Nowadays we might say “The Peace of Empathy” rather than “The Peace of Pity.” I’ve left the title unchanged in the body of the text. This hymn was first published unattributed in the Union Hymnal (1897) under the title “We Hail this Day” (Hymn №89), p. 95. In Rabbi J. Leonard Levy’s The Children’s Service for Use in Religious Schools (1902) it is found attributed to Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs under the title, “The Sabbath Day” with some changes to the final stanza on page 240. “Preis der Gotteslehre” is a hymn translated by Felix Adler from one found in Gebete und Gesänge zu dem von der Genossenschaft für Reform im Judenthum zu Berlin eingerichteten Gottesdienst für die Zeit zwischen dem Schewuoth- und Roschhaschanah-Fest des Weltjahres 5606/7, hymn №23, pp. 19-20 (1846) and published in Hymns, for Divine Service in the Temple Emanu-El (1871), hymn №3, pp. 6-7. We have tentatively dated this translation to 1868, since another hymn by Adler (“School-hymn, no. 36”) can be found appended from another unattributed work in A Guide to Instruction in the Israelitsh Religion (Samuel Adler, trans. M. Mayer, Temple Emanu-El, 1864, 4th printing 1868). The original hymn in German has three stanzas. A prayer of repentance and thanksgiving recited at the Shaare Shalom synagogue in Kingston, Jamaica in response to the massive Guadeloupe earthquake of 1843. “When morning paints the eastern sky,” by Cordelia Moïse Cohen (1809-1869), first published in 1842, appears under the subject “Immortality of the Soul” as Hymn 54 in Hymns Written for the Service of the Hebrew Congregation Beth Elohim, South Carolina (Penina Moïse et al., Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim, 1842), p. 57. That page is missing in the one copy of the first edition we know to exist. Thankfully, the hymn appears under the same subject as Hymn 40 in Hymns Written for the Use of Hebrew Congregations (Penina Moïse et al., Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim, 1856), p. 44. |