Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Jay Kaufman on 17 April 1967

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription), Jay Kaufman and the Congressional Record of the United States of America

Shared on:

14 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, 90th Congress, Joint warfare in South Vietnam, 20th century C.E., תחינות teḥinot, 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer

Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Jay Kaufman, executive vice president, B’nai B’rith, Washington, D.C.
Sponsor: n/a
Date of Prayer: 17 April 1967

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)
	Oh Lord, God of men, God of the strong and of the weak, from this august Chamber guerdoned with our Nation’s power wherein labor the architects of fate, rearing the walls of our day’s destiny, we pray for deeds to match our dire dilemmas.
	We pray for enactments to stay the unraveling of our Nation’s unity, for statutes and ordinances designed to raise the lowly, the scorned seething to break the man-forged manacles binding them to despair, to lowly recompense, crumbling dwellings, deficient preparation to self-sufficient maturity, yet forced to live in their penury, face to face with fellow citizens granted in abundance all the fruits of the bounties of our most prosperous of lands.
	From the hearts of all gathered here there rises unto Thee, oh Lord, the earnest beseechment for peace, the prayer for the wisdom to find our way out of the toils of war; a peace brought not by the coward’s flight but through the brave man’s concord.
	Our Heavenly Father, may the means be found to stay the carnage where brave men slay their brothers also brave, where the enemy we fight to Thee, oh Lord, is also dear.
מַה־נָּאווּ עַל־הֶהָרִים רַגְלֵי מְבַשֵּׂר מַשְׁמִיעַ שָׁלוֹם (ישעיה נב:ז)	Ma navu al he-harim raglei m’vaseir mashmiya shalom, How beautiful upon the hilltops are the feet of the messenger of the good tiding that announce Thy most precious gift of peace.—(Isaiah 52:7).
הֱוֵי מִתַּלְמִידָיו שֶׁל אַהֲרֹן אוֹהֵב שָׁלוֹם… אוֹהֵב אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת וּמְקָרְבָן לַתּוֹרָה (משנה אבות א:יב)	Oh God, may these legislators of our land follow the instructions of Hillel the Sage: Hevei mi-talmidov shel Aharon. Ohev shalom, ohev et ha-briyot… u-m’ḳorvan la-Torah. Be of the disciples of Aaron, lovers of peace…^[1] This quotation omits rodef shalom (“pursue peace”). lovers of all men^[2] ha-briyot literally translates to “all creatures.” and may be ye ever nigh unto God’s law—(Cf. Mishnah Avot 1:12).
אָמֵן	Amen.

This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the fourth month of the first session of the 90th US Congress in the Senate, and published in the Congressional Record, vol. 113, part 8 (17 April 1967), page 9786.

Source(s)

Congressional Record, vol. 113, part 8 (17 April 1967), p. 9786

Notes[+]

Notes
1	This quotation omits rodef shalom (“pursue peace”).
2	ha-briyot literally translates to “all creatures.”

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Jay Kaufman on 17 April 1967” 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.)

Jay Kaufman

Rabbi Jay Kaufman (1918-1971), born in Cleveland, Ohio, was a prominent Reform movement rabbi and community leader in the United States. After graduating from Western Reserve University, in 1946 he was ordained at Hebrew Union College‐Jewish Institute of Religion, where he received the Youngerman Prize for Preaching and the Henry Morgenthau Traveling Fellowship for two years of graduate rabbinic studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Rabbi Kaufman joined the staff of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1948, and became a vice president in 1957. In 1961 he assisted in setting up institutions of liberal Judaism in Israel. In 1965, he began serving as executive vice president of the international Jewish organization, B'nai B'rith. Throughout his career Rabbi Kaufman sought to diminish the partisanship growing out of the diverse, often competing, secular and religious elements and ideologies in Jewish life. His concern, he once said, was for “the overriding unity of purpose and hope by which the Jewish people survives.” He was a strong advocate of greater community support for Jewish education and the advancement of “an authentic Jewish culture, rooted in our people's traditions, for contemporary Jews.” He served on the boards of the Synagogue Council of America, the National Jewish Welfare Board and the National Zionist Organization of America. He was also a member of the governing body of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, a founding member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and chairman of the Jewish education committee of the World Conference of Jewish Organizations.

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 Dr. Israel Goldstein on 21 February 1967

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Herbert W. Bomzer on 23 May 1967

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Martin Jay Applebaum on 20 February 1992

Flag of the United States House of Representatives

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Gershon B. Chertoff on 19 April 1967

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Harry J. Kaufman on 13 February 1951

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi William Spigelman on 23 May 1967

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Jay Marcus on 13 September 1990

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=55389

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 Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription), Jay Kaufman 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=55389>.
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