![the Open Siddur Project [logo]](https://opensiddur.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Open-Siddur-Project-Logo-2016.svg){kind=logo}
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.
| Contribute a translation | Source (English) |
|---|---|
Oh America, where the guns roam free, blood stained streets full of weeping parents and neighbors. | |
Where Jeremiah’s prophetic tears for innocent lives cruelly torn from this world stream eternally down our cheeks, as weapons of death turn infinite profits plowshares turned into mass-produced swords and there is no comfort, only piercing grief. | |
Why do we continue to do this to each other? Are we simply waiting our turn? Our children’s turns? There can be no peace in a city where innocent lives are so casually undone. | |
Dear God, our despairing hearts have watched this endless hellish cycle for far too long. We, your children, are refractions of You. We know. We hear Your pain welling up from within our souls with each and every deadly bullet fired into Your Images, old and young, over and over and over and over. | |
These tears on our cheeks, this pain in our souls, this rage in our minds, this sacred work for a terrified world work that shouldn’t be needed in this world of Your Imagining – | |
– these are Your Tears on our cheeks, Your Pain in our souls, Your Rage in our minds, Your Compassion coursing through us. | |
This is Your Work in our hands. | |
And we declare: this shall not continue. | |
We will, Holy One, build a world of Love, where children can safely go about their lives, where neighbors act like neighbors, where hope feels nearer, where You are seen by everyone in everyone. | |
We will, through the tears, pain, and the rage, through the grief, the grief… the grief… and through the Love, Dear God, we will rescue this world. | |
In the memories of all those we’ve lost and in the names of those to come, we will End Gun Violence. | |
We ask of you, God: Be with us, as we do this sacred work. Bless the intentions of our hearts and bless the works of our hands. Heal us as we work to save Your children. Amen. |
“This Shall Not Continue: A Prayer to End Gun Violence” by Rabbi Menachem Creditor was shared on 30 April 2023 via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook.
“This Shall Not Continue: A Prayer to End Gun Violence, by Rabbi Menachem Creditor (2023)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.
Stable Link:
https://opensiddur.org/?p=50541
Associated Image:
2018.03.24 March for Our Lives, Washington, DC USA 4557 (credit: Ted Eyran, license: CC BY-SA)
(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 Menachem Creditor.
- 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=50541>.
- Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (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 "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
Comments, Corrections, and Queries