https://opensiddur.org/?p=47655Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Stephen Pinsky on 13 June 19892022-11-27 15:12:59The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 13 June 1989.Textthe Open Siddur ProjectAharon N. Varady (transcription)Aharon N. Varady (transcription)United States Congressional RecordStephen Pinskyhttps://opensiddur.org/copyright-policy/Aharon N. Varady (transcription)https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/United States of AmericaOpening Prayers for Legislative Bodies20th century C.E.תחינות teḥinot58th century A.M.English vernacular prayerPrayers of Guest ChaplainsSenate101st Congress
Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Stephen Pinsky, Temple Israel, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Date of Prayer: 13 June 1989
Sponsor: Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-MN)
Sen. Boschwitz: I thank the majority leader, Mr. President. I also found the rabbi’s prayer inspirational, as I so often do. I am a member of his congregation in Minneapolis, and I am proud to say that he is my rabbi and that he is here today to open the Senate. We look forward to today visiting together here in the Senate, and we look forward to having him again here in Washington. I yield the floor.
Our God
and the god who links us
generation to generation,
soul to soul, heart to heart:
As we begin this day’s session of this Senate,
let us pause to reflect
upon our lives
and upon our Nation—
upon its dreams and its promise.
We are thankful for this new day
and for this season of the year
as the days grow longer
and the pace of our lives slow
just a bit
as the Earth warms
and cares seem softened
by the Sun’s lengthening rays.
And we are grateful for the lives we lead,
for our homes
which offer us safe havens
from life’s inevitable storms,
for our families
which give life purpose and meaning,
for our Nation, this Republic
with its “amber waves of grain,”
its “purple mountain majesty,”[1] From Katherine Lee Bates’s, “America the Beautiful” (1895).
its patriot’s dream,
its alabaster cities,
its citizens proud and free,
its institutions democratic and open.
And although this Nation
celebrates a vision
of “one nation under God,”[2] Added to the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States in 1954.
we know all too well
that our society,
being a creation of men and women,
does not yet reflect
that which a nation under God
must reflect.
Our streets are too often filled with violence
and a spreading sense of valuelessness and despair.
Our people are not yet one
nor do all share equally Your gifts
to our Nation and our land.
There is hunger,
there is fear,
there is poverty of the body
and of the spirit.
Give us, O God,
the ability to feel the pain of others,
to reach out to them,
to share our blessings with them.
Help us to build a society
based on equity and justice,
on righteousness and peace.
Give us that wisdom,
that breadth of vision,
which shall enable us to understand
that if the cost of turning our land
into a garden
seems high to some,
the price of making it a desert
is higher still.
Grant the men and women of this Senate
the strength and the courage
to do what must be done
so that this Nation,
this blessed land,
may represent the very finest and the very best,
that it may, indeed,
“become” one nation under God.
Bless the work of their hands,
the Nation which we love so deeply
and of which we are so proud
so that all God’s children
will some day sit at His table
and drink the wine of deliverance
and eat the bread of freedom.
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 naqeniשְׁגִיאוֹת 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.)
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)
Stephen H. Pinsky, born in New York City, was ordained a “Rabbi in Israel” in 1971 by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York and awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity by his alma-mater in 1996. Rabbi Pinsky began his rabbinic career as the Assistant and then the Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth-El in Great Neck, New York. Five years later, he was named Rabbi of Temple Sinai of Bergen County located in Tenafly, New Jersey. In July 1981, Rabbi Pinsky was invited to become the Associate Rabbi of Temple Israel. He was elected Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel in 1986 and remained in that position until 1991 when he was named Regional Director of the Midwest Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations – now known as the Union for Reform Judaism. During his tenure in Minneapolis, Rabbi Pinsky was part of a national movement dedicated to moving Reform worship toward a more traditional style including a wider use of Hebrew in the liturgy, a greater emphasis on ritual as well as an increase in the depth and breadth of Jewish education for young people and adults. In the larger Minnesota community, Rabbi Pinsky was appointed to a committee by the late Governor Rudy Perpich whose purpose was to establish an institution which would serve the humanitarian needs of its citizens. Along with the Presidents of the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic, the Dean of the University of Minnesota’s Law School and other state notables, Rabbi Pinsky helped establish the Center for the Victims of Torture which he later served as Co-Chair of its Board. One of his most significant accomplishments was helping to develop the Interfaith Circles program which was created to foster Christian Jewish dialogue which is still in use nationwide. While serving as the UAHC Regional Director in St. Louis, Rabbi Pinsky continued his work in community outreach by serving as Vice-President of the St. Louis Chapter of the American Jewish Congress, Secretary of the St. Louis Rabbinic Association and President of the Interfaith Partnership of Greater St. Louis, the largest interfaith organization in Missouri. He also served on the Boards of the St. Louis Jewish Federation and its Jewish Community Relations Council. In July of 1996, Rabbi Stephen H. Pinsky became the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Torah in Wellington, Florida – a Reform congregation serving the western communities of Palm Beach County.
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