Closing Prayer for Washington’s Birthday, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription), John Paul Williams, Eugene Kohn and Mordecai Kaplan

Shared on:

20 February 2021 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Washington's Birthday (3rd Monday of February)

Tags:

English vernacular prayer, civic prayers, American Jewry of the United States, 20th century C.E., United States, 58th century A.M.

☞ Need to adjust a column of text to the right or left? Click on the header row and drag the column where you want. Here's an animated GIF showing the process.

☞ Need to copy a column or column(s) of text? We recommend the CopyTables extension.

Table options

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Our God and God of our fathers, You preside over the destinies of men and nations. All of them owe allegiance to your law of universal justice and right. The peace and welfare of all depend on their acceptance of your law as supreme. Grant that our nation may ever acknowledge your sway.
	May we never in the pride of our power be moved to seek domination over other peoples.
	May we never, in our enjoyment of ease and luxury, turn a deaf ear to the cry of the oppressed and impoverished of other lands.
	May we ever extend to other nations the hand of friendship, and strive for the unity of all mankind, that together we may effect the abolition of oppression, poverty, disease, and war.
	Hasten the day when those blessings which you have showered on our country may become the common heritage of all men and nations. Amen.

This closing prayer for Washington’s Birthday was first published in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951), p. 68. I have replaced archaisms in this prayer (thee, thy, thou, etc.) and made other related changes. –Aharon Varady

Source(s)

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“Closing Prayer for Washington’s Birthday, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)” is shared by the living contributor(s) with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

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 Nakeni 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 administering the Open Siddur Project and this website.)

John Paul Williams

Dr. John Paul Williams (1900-1973) was chairman of the department of religion at Mount Holyoke College. In 1946, he served as president of the National Association of Biblical Instructors (now known as the American Academy of Religion). He wrote What Americans Believe and How They Worship (1952, revised 1962) containing the chapter "Judaism -- the Mother Institution." Together with Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and Eugene Kohn he co-authored the anthology of civic prayers, Faith in America (1951).

Eugene Kohn

Eugene Kohn (January 26, 1887 - April 1, 1977) was an American Reconstructionist rabbi, writer and editor. Born in Newark, New Jersey he attended the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and in 1912 received ordination. It was here that he met Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan who taught him homiletics. Between 1912 and 1939 he served as a congregational rabbi in Conservative synagogues in the U.S. states of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin and Ohio. He also served as the president of the Rabbinical Assembly 1936-1937. He played a central role in the Reconstructionist movement. He edited its journal The Reconstructionist and, alongside Kaplan and Ira Eisenstein, edited The New Haggadah (1941), The Sabbath Prayer Book (1945) and The Reconstructionist Prayer Book (1948). Alongside Jack Cohen, Eisenstein and Milton Steinberg he was one of Kaplan's main disciples.

Mordecai Kaplan

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983), was a rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator and the co-founder of Reconstructionist Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.

Stable Link:

https://opensiddur.org/?p=35751

Associated Image:

life mask of George Washington (The Frick Collection)

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

This post, editable:

closing-prayer-for-washingtons-birthday-by-mordecai-kaplan-j-paul-williams-and-eugene-kohn-1951.odt

Please reciprocate for any adaptation or redistribution of this work by (1) properly attributing the work to Aharon N. Varady (transcription), John Paul Williams, Eugene Kohn and Mordecai Kaplan, (2) clearly indicating the date you accessed the resource and whether any changes have been made (and if so, please be in touch with us and leave a comment below so that we might note your adaptation or improvement), (3) providing the stable link to this resource, and (4) specifying the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license under which this work was shared.

Support this work:

The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libré 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. If you like what you've found here, please help keep our project alive and online with your financial contribution.

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