Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Israel Poleyeff on 5 April 1995

Contributor(s):

Israel Poleyeff and the Congressional Record of the United States of America

Shared on:

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

Categories:

Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies, United States of America

Tags:

Prayers of Guest Chaplains, U.S. Senate, 104th Congress, 20th century C.E., תחינות teḥinot, 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer

Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Israel Poleyeff, Brooklyn, New York
Sponsor: Senator Alfonse D’Amato (D-NY)
Date of Prayer: 5 April 1995

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)
	Almighty God: We ask Thy blessings upon the distinguished Members of this Senate of the United States of America. Give them insight to understand the concerns and problems of all the people of this blessed land; bless them with wisdom to enact laws that will benefit all its inhabitants, and imbue them with courage to make difficult decisions for the public good.
	For more than a century, millions of immigrants, my father’s family amongst them,^[1] The family of Moshe Aharon Poleyeff (1888 – 1966) a rabbi and Rosh Yeshivah at Yeshiva University in New York for over 45 years, a teacher of many prominent Orthodox rabbis. came to these shores seeking freedom from tyranny and oppression.
	To this very day our beloved country still serves as a beacon of light to those to whom freedom is but an elusive ideal.
	To this very day our country still stands as a shining example of individual liberty and limitless opportunity.
	More than two centuries ago, our Founding Fathers created a nation in which every individual had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.^[2] Cf. the US Declaration of Independence, stylized by Benjamin Franklin and penned by Thomas Jefferson, famously signed 4 July 1776. Scholars differ as to whether the historical origin of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are rooted in Lockean Rights (following after the “Virginia Declaration of Rights” written by George Mason and adopted 12 June 1776) or possibly in Jefferson’s self-proclaimed Epicureanism. –Aharon Varady.
	The Members of this Senate have the awesome responsibility of seeing that those goals remain the hallmark of our Nation.
	We beseech Thee, O Lord, imbue them with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to hold aloft the banner of freedom and the torch of liberty, so that all the inhabitants of this country shall be privileged to live, work, and worship their God as they choose and without fear.
	May our country be the leader among nations in ushering in an era of universal peace and harmony so that the words of the prophet may be fulfilled in our time, when “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4) May this by Thy will. Amen.

This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the fourth month of the first session of the 104th US Congress in the Senate, and published in the Congressional Record, vol. 141, no. 63 (Senate – April 5, 1995), page s5161.

Recording

Source(s)

Notes[+]

Notes
1	The family of Moshe Aharon Poleyeff (1888 – 1966) a rabbi and Rosh Yeshivah at Yeshiva University in New York for over 45 years, a teacher of many prominent Orthodox rabbis.
2	Cf. the US Declaration of Independence, stylized by Benjamin Franklin and penned by Thomas Jefferson, famously signed 4 July 1776. Scholars differ as to whether the historical origin of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are rooted in Lockean Rights (following after the “Virginia Declaration of Rights” written by George Mason and adopted 12 June 1776) or possibly in Jefferson’s self-proclaimed Epicureanism. –Aharon Varady.

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Israel Poleyeff on 5 April 1995” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

Israel Poleyeff

Rabbi Israel Poleyeff (1928-), born in Brooklyn, New York, is an Orthodox rabbi, chaplain, and educator in the United States. He graduated Yeshivah University in 1949 and received semikhah there in 1951. From 1954-1956, he served at Fort Pickett, Virginia as a rabbi Chaplain in the US Army. Afterward, he served at pulpits in Pennsylvania (Congregation Tifereth Israel, New Castle) and New Jersey (Congregation Agudath Achim, Freehold) until in 1967 he became rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Achim in Brooklyn. While there he was also a teacher at the Hebrew Academy of Five Towns, Cedarhurst, New York until 1999. He served on the Rabbinical Board of Flatbush (president 1979-1981, 1991-2001).

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:

Flag of the United States House of Representatives

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Rachel S. Mikva on 8 March 1995

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Max A. Shapiro on 15 April 1985

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Charles M. Rubel on 21 April 1958

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Abraham Hecht on 21 April 1983

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein on 23 April 1958

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Abraham Hecht on 25 April 1966

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Herman Eliot Snyder on 28 April 1948

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=55232

Associated Image:

Flag of the United States Senate

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

Source Data: XML | JSON

Re-formatted: HTML | ODT

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

Properly attribute the work to Israel Poleyeff 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=55232>.
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