Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Joseph P. Weinberg on 21 February 1974

Contributor(s):

Joseph P. Weinberg and the Congressional Record of the United States of America

Shared on:

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

Categories:

🇺🇸 National Brotherhood Week, 🇺🇸 United States of America, Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies

Tags:

93rd Congress, 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, U.S. Senate, תחינות teḥinot

Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Joseph P. Weinberg, Washington Hebrew Congregation, Washington, D.C.
Date of Prayer: 21 February 1974
Sponsor: n/a

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	We cannot merely pray to You, O God, To abolish war and starvation; To root out prejudice; To end despair and disease.
	For we know that You have made the world in such a way That man can find his own path to peace, That man can develop the resources With which to feed the entire world. That we can see the good in all men And use our minds to bring dignity and healing to our brothers.
	Therefore we pray to You instead, O God, For strength, determination, and will-power, To do instead of just to pray, To become instead of merely to wish.
	For Your sake and for ours, Speedily and soon, That our land may be safe, And that our lives may be blessed.
	May the words that we pray, And the deeds that we do Both be acceptable before You, O Lord, Our Rock and our Redeemer.

This prayer of the guest chaplain was offered in the second month of the second session of the 93rd US Congress in the Senate. The source images of the prayer were copied by Howard Mortman and shared via his @CongressRabbi Twitter account. All credit to Howard Mortman for his research in digging up this prayer. Unfortunately, neither the source images nor his tweets provide an exact citation reference to the volume, issue, and page number of the Congressional Record in which the prayer was published. If you know, leave a comment, or contact us.

Source(s)

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain (Joseph Weinberg, 21 February 1974)

Joseph P. Weinberg

Rabbi Joseph P. Weinberg (1937-1999) was the fifth senior rabbi at Washington Hebrew Congregation (Washington, DC). Born in Chicago, Weinberg graduated from Northwestern University and immediately entered Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Following his ordination in 1963, he served as assistant rabbi at a San Francisco congregation before coming to Washington. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and was arrested twice, and in Washington, played a leading role in efforts to improve racial relations and fight poverty. He helped start Ya’chad, a Jewish organization promoting affordable city housing and Carrie Simon House, a transitional home for unmarried mothers in Northwest Washington. He was also a fervent supporter of Israel and campaigned for years to help Soviet Jews emigrate.

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)

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=54393

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.)

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

Properly attribute the work to Joseph P. Weinberg 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=54393>.
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 volunteer contributors, or its 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-commercial, 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.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו׃ (תהלים צ:יז) · "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)

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Joseph P. Weinberg on 21 February 1974

Source(s)

Read a comment / Leave a comment (moderated)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply