Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Saul Israel Wisemon on 2 May 1968

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription), Saul Israel Wisemon and the Congressional Record of the United States of America

Shared on:

29 April 2024 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Categories:

Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies, Yom ha-Atsma'ut (5 Iyyar), Medinat Yisra'el (the State of Israel), United States of America

Tags:

U.S. House of Representatives, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, 90th Congress, 20th century C.E., תחינות teḥinot, 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer

Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Saul Israel Wisemon, Delaware County Jewish Community Center, Springfield, Pennsylvania
Sponsor: Rep. Lawrence Williams (R-PA)
Date of Prayer: 2 May 1968

TOGGLE COLUMNS (on/off):

ADJUST COLUMN POSITIONS: select the column header cell and drag it where you want. show me!

COPY INDIVIDUAL COLUMN(S): use CopyTables, a browser extension.

TABLE HELP

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
מאת יהוה היתה זאת היא נפלאת בעינינו זה היום עשה יהוה נגילה ונשמחה בו׃ (תהלים קיח:כג-כד)	This is the Lord’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made; We will rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalms 118:23-24).
	Our Father, who art in heaven, we pray that Thou wilt bless these men, chosen by the people of this Nation.
	Bestow Thy blessings upon the President of these United States, the Vice President, the Speaker and Representatives of this great House, and all who minister unto the needs of this great Nation.
	Standing before Thee, at this historic hour and place, we call to mind that twenty years have passed in Thy sight,^[1] Psalms 90:4. since our beloved America, reared in the spiritual heritage of ancient Israel’s timeless Book, helped the young State of Israel, beacon and bastion of freedom and democracy, come into being.
	We thank Thee, for the miracle of Israel, and Thy everlasting mercies, which endure forever.
	We pray Thee, guide the State of Israel and all who minister unto her. Protect them, with the right, of the might, from above.^[2] Possibly inspired by Irving Berlin’s lyrics for “God Bless America” (1918/1938), “Stand beside her and guide her / Through the night with the light from above.”
	Grant, O Lord, that the bonds which make us feel a sense of spiritual kinship with Israel, may grow ever stronger, with the passage of time.
	Guide Thou their way, that out of Zion shall come forth the law of justice, for all mankind, and Thy word of light, healing and hope for all Thy troubled children, everywhere from Jerusalem.
	As we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, we thank Thee for this our sweet land of liberty and democracy.
יברכך יהוה וישמרך יאר יהוה פניי אליך ויחנך ישא יהוה פניו אליך וישם לך שלום׃ (במדבר ו:כד-כו)	May the Lord bless us and keep us, The Lord make His face to shine upon us, and be gracious unto us, The Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace^[3] Numbers 6:24–26, a/k/a the Birkat Kohanim (Priestly Blessing). — Now and forever more. Amen.

This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the fourth month of the second session of the 90th US Congress in the House of Representatives, and published in the Congressional Record, vol. 114, part 9 (2 May 1968), p. 11421.

Source(s)

Congressional Record, vol. 114, part 9 (2 May 1968), p. 11421

Notes[+]

Notes
1	Psalms 90:4.
2	Possibly inspired by Irving Berlin’s lyrics for “God Bless America” (1918/1938), “Stand beside her and guide her / Through the night with the light from above.”
3	Numbers 6:24–26, a/k/a the Birkat Kohanim (Priestly Blessing).

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Saul Israel Wisemon on 2 May 1968” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

Aharon N. Varady (editing/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 naqeni 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 serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Saul Israel Wisemon

Rabbi Saul Israel Wisemon (1934-?) was a rabbi who served pulpits in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Unfortunately, we know very little about his life and career besides his arrest in 1983. “Police said a warehouse rented by a rabbi contained more than 10,000 allegedly stolen religious books and microfilms that had disappeared from schools, libraries and synagogues throughout the Northeast,” the Associated Press reported from Vineland, New Jersey on May 5, 1983. “The discovery was made in an investigation of Rabbi Saul Wisemon. . . . Authorities want to question Wisemon about the disappearance of a Torah—a valuable hand-written scroll of Jewish law—from a Bridgeton temple.” (as quoted by Howard Mortman in When Rabbis Bless Congress: The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill (2021), p. 253.) If you know more about the life and career of Rabbi Wisemon and would like to add to this short bio, please contact us.

the Congressional Record of the United States of America

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Printing Office and issued when Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. Statutory authorization for the Congressional Record is found in Chapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Code. (wikipedia)

Pocket Pinterest Reddit 𝕏 Facebook Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email

Works of related interest:

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Saul Israel Wisemon on 28 May 1970

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Morris A. Landes on 2 May 1968

Flag of the United States House of Representatives

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Laurence A. Kotok on 2 May 1979

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Israel Goldstein on 23 April 1958

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi David Shapiro on 24 January 1968

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Arthur T. Buch on 1 April 1968

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Karl Applbaum on 29 April 1963

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=55704

Associated Image:

Flag of the United States House of Representatives

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

Source: XML | JSON | HTML | ODT

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription), Saul Israel Wisemon and the Congressional Record of the United States of America.
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=55704>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of contributors, patrons, or institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre 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