Prayer for the Protection of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania after the Battle of Gettysburg by Rabbi Sabato Morais (4 July 1863)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Sabato Morais

Shared on:

18 August 2022 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

War, United States of America

Tags:

57th century A.M., Philadelphia, English vernacular prayer, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Slaveholders' Rebellion (1861-1865), Ḳ.Ḳ. Miḳveh Israel (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Battle of Gettysburg, 19th century C.E.

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Almighty God! Suffer our entreaty to ascend Thy throne, and hearken unto it, as Thou didst hearken unto that of King Hezekiah and Isaiah the prophet. Our merits cannot, like theirs, intercede for us, but Thy mercy is not measured by human virtues, for, alas! we should then have long since been driven from Thy presence.
	Behold our confusion by reason of him that reproacheth and derideth. Uplift us from the dust into which our sins have cast us. Raise the horn of our salvation. Encircle Pennsylvania with Thy mighty shield, protect the lives of her inhabitants. Let her adversaries be foiled in their devices; let the fowler’s snare be broken, and the souls of Thy suppliants be delivered. Cause the din of war to cease from this our beloved State. But let the sound of Thy praises be heard in her borders, at the tidings of her success.
	Oh! return unto us! O God of our salvation, remove from Thy servants Thy fierce anger. Then this day which has brought us trouble, rebuke, and derision, will henceforth be celebrated with a joyful heart, with glory and national happiness.
	God, in Thee alone we trust, O Most High! and through Thy divine aid we shall again walk in enlargement. So may it speedily be, and say ye, Amen.

This prayer by Rabbi Sabato Morais was offered on US Independence Day (4 July 1863) at the conclusion of a sermon reguested by the “Philadelphia Union League” and delivered before Congregation Mikveh Israel, that was published in The Jewish Messenger on 10 July 1863. July 4th, 1863, was the day following the Battle of Gettysburg, and hand’t yet been recognized as the crucial turning point in the defeat of the Confederacy during the Slaveholder’s Revolt. It was preserved by Rabbi Morais in his ledger (page 22, clipping 023), an archive of newsclippings recording material he contributed to the press, among other announcements. (Many thanks to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania for helping to make this resource accessible.)

Source(s)

Independence Day prayer [4 July 1863] (Sabato Morais Ledger p. 22, clip no. 023)

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“Prayer for the Protection of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania after the Battle of Gettysburg by Rabbi Sabato Morais (4 July 1863)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (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.)

Sabato Morais

Rabbi Sabato Morais (שבתאי מוראיס; April 13, 1823 – November 11, 1897) was an Italian-American rabbi, leader of Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia, pioneer of Italian Jewish Studies in America, and in 1886, co-founder (with Henry Pereira Mendes) of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America to preserve the knowledge and practice of traditional, historical rabbinic Judaism in the United States.

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Independence Day prayer [4 July 1863] (Sabato Morais Ledger p. 22, clip no. 023)

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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