Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (24 November 1853)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Sabato Morais

Shared on:

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

Categories:

Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November), United States of America

Tags:

19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, thanksgiving

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Praise and thanksgiving belong to Thee, O God, our benefactor! Accept, therefore, the feeble acknowledgments of Thy servants, who lowly bow their heads before Thee.
	We thank Thee, O, Father! for having created us with an intelligent mind, capable of appreciating Thy goodness.
	We thank Thee for having fostered us with tenderness, nourished us with care, supported us with benignity.
	We thank Thee, because when pestilence raged, Thy hand was stretched forth to shield us from death; when sore diseases fell upon us, a cure was sent to heal our pains.
	We thank Thee, because without our knowledge thou didst avert many evils from us. Thou didst remove our feet from falling into chasms hidden from our eyes; Thou did’st blunt the sword that was ready to strike us, and before adversity reached us, Thou did’st steel our hearts to endure it resignedly.
	We thank Thee, because Thy unlimited bounty has been particularly manifested in this city and in this land.
	Exceedingly grateful we are to Thee, O, Ruler of the Universe! for that freedom which enables every man to give full scope to the noble attributes of his soul.
	We are grateful to Thee, because thou did’st imbue the fathers of this nation with a spirit of justice and magnanimity, to allow, without restraint, the exercise of the various religious tenets of each citizen; and because one sole law exists here, both for the native and for the stranger that dwells among us. Grant, O, beneficent Lord! that these enactments, which are the safeguard of individual liberty, be ever preserved unaltered.
	Suffer not, O, Lord, the glory of America to be tarnished by the ruthless hand of intolerance, but grant that a spirit of union may ever animate her children to watch over the preservation of this noble heirloom of their ancestors.
	Bless, O, Almighty Sovereign! the supreme magistrate of this republic, and may his latter end be as lustrous as his beginning.
	Bless our legislators and our senators, and may their labor redound to the well-being of their country.
	Bless them who sit in judgment, to justify the righteous and condemn the wicked; may rectitude stand at their right hand, mildness and compassion at their left.
	Bless all our brethren of the Union, their wives and their mothers, their infants and their sucklings; may they all be worthy of Thy further benevolence.
	Bless the human race, and may all the nations of the earth soon be linked in one single bond of brotherhood, under the dominion of liberty and equality, which are the birthright of thy intelligent creatures. Amen!

This Thanksgiving Day prayer by Rabbi Sabato Morais was offered at the conclusion of a “Thanksgiving Discourse. An Address. Delivered by a member of the order on the 24th of November, it being the Thanksgiving Day appointed by the Governor of the State of Pennsylvania.” and recorded in The Masonic Mirror and Keystone on 7 December 1853. It was preserved by Rabbi Morais in his ledger (page 3b-c, clipping 002), 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)

Thanksgiving Day [1853] (Sabato Morais Ledger, p. 3, clipping 002) – a

Thanksgiving Day [1853] (Sabato Morais Ledger, p. 3, clipping 002) – b

Thanksgiving Day [1853] (Sabato Morais Ledger, p. 3, clipping 002) – c

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“Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (24 November 1853)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft 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.)

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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Works of related interest:

Thanksgiving Day [1851] (Sabato Morais Ledger, p. 2, clipping 001)

Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (27 November 1851)

Thanksgiving Day [1856] (Sabato Morais Ledger, p. 8, clipping 007) - a

Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (20 November 1856)

Thanksgiving Day Prayer (Sabato Morais 1852) - cropped

Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (25 November 1852)

Thanksgiving Day Prayer [1864-11-24] (Sabato Morais Ledger, p. 23, clipping 028)

Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day during the Civil War, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (24 November 1864)

Thanksgiving Day Prayer [1867-11-28] (Sabato Morais Ledger, p. 35, clipping 042) - cropped

Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (28 November 1867)

Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day on the First Day of Ḥanukkah during the Civil War, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (28 November 1861)

Prayer for the United States on Thanksgiving Day, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (24 November 1870)

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Thanksgiving Day [1853] (Sabato Morais Ledger, p. 3, clipping 002) – c

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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