A Prayer for Renewal, by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi (2004)

Contributor(s): Netanel Miles-Yépez and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Shared on: 9 June 2021 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories: Earth, our Collective Home & Life-Support System

Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, תקון tiqqun

This is an untitled prayer by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, originally offered by him in an address given at the Roundtable Dialogue for the visit of the 14th Dalai Lama together with other Nobel Laureates in Vancouver, B.C., entitled “Balancing Educating the Mind with Educating the Heart.” The event was held at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, on Tuesday, April 20, 2004. While the video documenting the address is currently offline, thankfully the original text of the prayer is given in its transcription by Gabbai Seth Fishman. The prayer is presented here alongside an adaptation found in the High Holy Days Maḥzor of Congregation Nevei Kodesh: Jewish Renewal Community of Boulder (2018), p.36, Section 10: Prayers for Rosh haShanah. The prayer in this form, as revised by Netanel Miles-Yepez and Reb Zalman, can be found at Kol Aleph (2014) and the now defunct Sufi Hasidim website (2009).

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)	Adaptation (English)
	Source of time and space, Avinu Malkenu, from infinity, draw down to us the Great Renewal, and attune us to Your intent	Source of Time and Space, Avinu Malkeinu! Draw down to us The great renewal, A stream from the Infinite, Attuning us to Your timely intent.
	so that Wisdom, Your daughter, flows into our awareness, to awaken us to see ahead so that we help instead of harm.	Let Wisdom flow Into our awareness, Awakening us to foresight, Guiding us to help Instead of harm.
	May all the devices we make and use be sparing and protecting of your creation.
	Help us, God, to set right what we have debased, to heal what we have made ill, to care for and to restore what we have injured.	Help us to set right All that we have debased, To heal what we Have made ill, To care for and restore What we have injured.
	Bless our Earth, our home, and show us all how to care for her, so that we might live Your promise, given to our forebears, to live heavenly days right here on this Earth.	Bless the Earth, our home; Guide us in how To care for her So we might live According to Your promise: Days of Heaven Here on Earth.
	May all the beings You have fashioned become aware that it is You who has given them being.
	May we realize that You shape our lives, and may each one who breathes join with others who breathe in the delight of shared knowing of the Great Breath.
	Assist us in learning how to partner with family, neighbors and friends.
	Aid us in dissolving old enmities. May we come to honor, even in those whom we fear, Your image and form, Your light dwelling in their hearts.	Aid us in dissolving Old enmities; May we come to honor, Even in those Whom we fear, Your image and form, Your-Light-Dwelling In their hearts.
	We pray for Vaclav Havel, who couldn’t be with us today. May his health be restored. May he be able to teach and continue to share with people a vision of enlightened government that we could use on both sides of the Atlantic at this time.
	May we soon see the day when Your house will indeed be the house of prayer for all peoples,^[1] Cf. Isaiah 56:7. named, and celebrated in every tongue and speech and on that day, You will be one, and one with all of cosmic life,^[2] Cf. Zechariah 14:9 Amen.	May our star soon rise On the day When Your House Will indeed be A House of Prayer for All Peoples, Named and celebrated In every tongue; On that day You will be known As One with all Cosmic Life.
	We need to relearn the technology of blessings. May the people who organized this event, the people who contributed with effort and finances, may we who spoke and you who listened be blessed with energy, vigor, resourcefulness, joy, health and well-being, harmony in your family-life and work-life to actualize the new hope.	May we all be blessed with vigor, resourcefulness, joy, health, well-being, harmony in our families and in our work-life, to actualize our renewed hope.
	And may the words of my mouth and the concerns in our hearts be received and responded to by the One in Whom we find refuge and redemption, amen.	May the words of my mouth, and the concerns of our hearts, be received and responded to by the One in whom we find refuge and redemption. Amen.

Notes[+]

Notes
1	Cf. Isaiah 56:7.
2	Cf. Zechariah 14:9

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“A Prayer for Renewal, by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi (2004)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Netanel Miles-Yépez

Netanel Miles-Yépez is an artist, religion scholar, and spiritual teacher.Born into a Mexican-American family, in his late teens, Miles-Yépez discovered his family's hidden Jewish roots and began to explore Judaism and other religions seriously. After studying history of religions and comparative religion at Michigan State University, he moved to Boulder, Colorado to study with the innovative Hasidic master and leader in ecumenical dialogue, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. In addition to Schachter-Shalomi, he also studied with various Sufi masters and teachers of Buddhism, and counts Father Thomas Keating, Trappist monk and founder of the Centering Prayer movement, as an important influence. In 2004, he and Schachter-Shalomi co-founded the Sufi-Hasidic, Inayati-Maimuni Order, fusing the Sufi and Hasidic principles of spirituality and practice espoused by Rabbi Avraham Maimuni in 13th-century Egypt with the teachings of the Ba’al Shem Tov and Hazrat Inayat Khan. Currently, he teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.As a writer on religious subjects, he is known for his critically acclaimed commentaries on Hasidic spirituality (written with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi), A Heart Afire: Stories and Teachings of the Early Hasidic Masters (2009) and A Hidden Light: Stories and Teachings of Early HaBaD and Bratzlav Hasidism (2011). He is also the editor several ecumenical works, including The Common Heart: An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue (2006) and Meditations for InterSpiritual Practice (2011).As an artist, Miles-Yépez is mostly known for his vibrant paintings, influenced by traditional religious imagery and his Mexican-American heritage. His work in general represents a lifelong fascination with religious iconography, myth and symbol, image and archetype, cultural impressions and his own ancestry. Most of his work is concerned with the acculturation and use of traditional symbols and iconic forms in a new multi-cultural paradigm.

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Rabbi Dr. Zalman Meshullam Schachter-Shalomi, affectionately known as "Reb Zalman" (28 August 1924 – 3 July 2014) was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement. Born in Żółkiew, Poland (now Ukraine) and raised in Vienna, he was interned in detention camps under the Vichy Regime but managed to flee the Nazi advance, emigrating to the United States in 1941. He was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi in 1947 within the ḤaBaD Hasidic movement while under the leadership of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, and served ḤaBaD communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He subsequently earned an M.A. in psychology of religion at Boston University, and a doctorate from the Hebrew Union College. He was initially sent out to speak on college campuses by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, but in the early 1960s, after experimenting with "the sacramental value of lysergic acid", the main ingredient in LSD, leadership within ḤaBaD circles cut ties with him. He continued teaching the Torah of Ḥassidut until the end of his life to creative, free and open-minded Jewish thinkers with humility and kindness and established warm ecumenical ties as well. In September 2009, he became the first contributor of a siddur to the Open Siddur Project database of Jewish liturgy and related work. Reb Zalman supported the Open Siddur Project telling its founder, "this is what I've been looking forward to!" and sharing among many additional works of liturgy, an interview he had with Havurah magazine in the early to mid-1980s detailing his vision of "Database Davenen." The Open Siddur Project is proud to be realizing one of Reb Zalman's long held dreams.

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Works of related interest:

A Blessing over Water for Peace, Health, Joy, Prosperity, and Kindness — by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (ca. 2004)

Still from an animation, "Lunar Eclipse: Light Scattering Seen From The Moon" The way that light is scattered by the Earth's atmosphere to turn the moon red during an eclipse is similar to how the sky turns red at sunset. (credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, license PD)

הושׁענות | Hoshanot by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, translation by Gabbai Seth Fishman

📖 בספר חיים (התחדשות יהודית)‏ | B’Sefer Ḥayyim: A Jewish Renewal/Reconstructionist Maḥzor for the Days of Awe (2016)

Jonah and the Whale by Pieter Lastman (1621)

An Untitled Prayer for Shaḥarit on days without Taḥanun after Psalms 15, by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

📖 סידור תהילת ה׳ ידבר פי | Siddur Tehillat Hashem Yedaber Pi, by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (2009)

Image: Good Morning by khawkins04 (License: CC-BY 2.0)

מודה אני | Modeh Ani by Moshe ibn Makhir (interpretive translation by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi)

Illustrated Kabbalat Shabbat Siddur - Page 29 by Daniel Nebenzahl (license: CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported)

עמידה לשחרית שבת | The Amidah for Shabbat (Morning), by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

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