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Guest Chaplain: Rabbi William Spigelman, Congregation Shaarei Tefila, Los Angeles, California
Sponsor: n/a
Date of Prayer: 23 May 1967
Sponsor: n/a
Date of Prayer: 23 May 1967
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| Contribute a translation | Source (English) |
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Help us O Lord; the waters have reached unto our very souls (Psalms 69:1). | |
Almighty God, in this world when sacred freedom and weary embers of despair challenge the dignity of man, we invoke Thy blessing for the power of freedom, which alone makes the growth of civilization possible. | |
As the flesh of humanity is now being scarred by the corrosive acids of brutality, we beseech Thee to eradicate false pride that would impede the passionate quest for a just peace, which is the poetry of life. | |
Inspire our leadership to pierce the barriers of callousness, which is submerged beneath the waves of suspicion and inundated by the tides of abject fear. No country has bequeathed profounder love for all mankind. | |
Let us, therefore, never succumb to the “shocks that man is heir to”[1] Adapted from Hamlet (act 3, scene 1) by William Shakespeare: “To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to— ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep— To sleep, perchance to dream.” nor acquiesce to the regimen of cruelty which divides and destroys. | |
Let us continue to search for man’s inherent goodness and kindness that make all mortals kin. Amen. |
This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the fifth month of the first session of the 90th US Congress in the House of Representatives, and published in the Congressional Record, vol. 113, part 10 (23 May 1967), page 13568.
Source(s)
Congressional Record, vol. 113, part 10 (23 May 1967), p. 13568
Notes
| 1 | Adapted from Hamlet (act 3, scene 1) by William Shakespeare: “To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to— ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep— To sleep, perchance to dream.” |
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“Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi William Spigelman on 23 May 1967” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.
Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)
William Spigelman
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