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Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Nachum David Herman, Congregation Tifereth Israel, Brooklyn, New York
Sponsor: Rep. Louis B. Heller (D-NY)
Date of Prayer: 7 March 1950
Sponsor: Rep. Louis B. Heller (D-NY)
Date of Prayer: 7 March 1950
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Almighty God, we beseech Thee that Thou wilt make this moment of devotion integrant of Thy mercy and benevolence, betrothed only to Thy grace. | |
We come to Thee with burdens on our minds, and hearts saturated with haunting fears of a peace lost and a war hovering about; with deep anxiety over the future of our children in a world trembling on the side of chaos; a world moving rapidly downward into the anarchy of a ghastly morrow that may sweep like a tidal wave out of the impenitent evil of totalitarianism. | |
O Heavenly Father, open Thou our eyes so that we may see the duty that rests upon us in this hour. | |
Clear Thou from our hearts the self-righteousness that would blind us to our own failings. | |
Make us to understand that we, too, by our own default, were responsible for the infamous carnage that was inflicted on the People of the Book, and our responsibility for the weakening of the peace that permitted the bloody holocaust of communism to rise in high places of mankind. | |
Strengthen Thou our souls, so that we will now rise to our full duty and press forward to bring the fruits of Thy glory to the foot of the altar of a new covenant of justice and peace, for in Thy kingdom in the power and might of Thy abode, we will find the wisdom to combat evil and atheism. | |
Thou, who hast created men in Thine own image,[1] Cf. Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 5:1. guard us against prejudice and discrimination against the maltreatment of our fellow men because of race, color, or the manner in which we worship Thee. “Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10). | |
Grant us grace fearlessly to contest bane wickedness and to make no peace with oppression in our land or elsewhere. | |
This, the month of Adar on the Hebrew calendar, commemorates the deliverance of the Jews of Persia from the hands of Haman; let us strengthen our bonds with God and pray that He deliver mankind from the Hamans of our days. | |
May He instill in the hearts of this legislative body, all the elements that make democracy God’s chosen instrument against the forces, sub rosa and stridulous,[2] i.e., forces covert and overt. which are bent upon the enslavement of mankind. | |
May He feed the hearts and train the minds of our lawmakers who legislate His will. Amen. |
This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the second month of the second session of the 81st US Congress in the House of Representatives, and published in the Congressional Record, vol. 96, part 3 (1950), page 2947. The Jewish Telegraphic agency, reporting on the invocation noted that it was the first time that such a prayer had been offered by an “Orthodox” rabbi. As traditionalist rabbis had already been offering prayers before Congress since Rabbi Marcus Jastrow’s prayer before the House of Representatives in 1869, Rabbi Abraham de Sola’s in 1872, and Rabbi Henry Mendes’s prayer before the Senate in 1888 — this JTA note should itself be read in its historical context. As the wikipedia article on “Orthodox Judaism” notes, “Only in the postwar era [in the United States], did the vague traditional coalition come to a definite end [with] a new wave of strictly observant refugees [arriving] from Eastern and Central Europe [during and after the Holocaust].”
Source(s)
Congressional Record, vol. 96, part 3 (7 March 1950), p. 2947
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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
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