אחרי הסערה | Prayer in the Aftermath of the Hurricane, by Rabbi Samuel Barth (2012)

Contributor(s):

Samuel Barth

Shared on:

1 November 2012 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Dangerous Storms & Floods

Tags:

ocean, storm, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Hurricane Sandy, disaster, weather, emergency

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Hebrew	English
אֶשָּׂא עֵינַי אֶל הֶהָרִים מֵאַיִן יָבֹא עֶזְרִי׃ (תהלים קכא:א)	I lift my eyes to the high places– where will my help come from?^[1] Psalms 121:1
	Your Power, God, Creator of the world, is manifest in the winds of the hurricane and the destruction they have caused. We turn to You to pray for the wisdom and strength of those responsible for preparation and rescue, for administration and co-ordination, the first and last responders. May they find the strength and courage the insight and judgment, the love of humanity to do their best to bring our wisdom and technology to alleviate suffering, to heal injury and to restore the services and infrastructure upon which our lives are built. And may we all find ourselves ready to give support, encouragement, love and gifts as needed.
עֶזְרִי מֵעִם יְהוָה עֹשֵׂה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ׃ (תהלים קכא:ב)	My help comes from YHVH who made the heavens and the earth.^[2] Psalms 121:2

We are grateful to Rabbi Samuel Barth for sharing his prayer in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. This work was initially published distributed through email and over Facebook.

Notes[+]

Notes
1	Psalms 121:1
2	Psalms 121:2

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“אחרי הסערה | Prayer in the Aftermath of the Hurricane, by Rabbi Samuel Barth (2012)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Samuel Barth

Rabbi Samuel Barth is Senior Lecturer of Liturgy and Worship at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He was ordained at Leo Baeck College in London, following undergraduate studies in Mathematical Physics and Philosophy at the University of Sussex and the Open University (UK). He is completing doctoral work at New York Theological Seminary, exploring the use of Psalms in the interfaith context. Recently, Rabbi Barth served as a congregational rabbi in Austin, Texas, and Gloucester, Massachusetts. In the past, he served as dean and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic seminary in Riverdale, New York, where he was instrumental in establishing the cantorial program and a second campus in Los Angeles.

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2 comments to אחרי הסערה | Prayer in the Aftermath of the Hurricane, by Rabbi Samuel Barth (2012)

Lauren Deutsch
2012-11-01 at 9:04 am · Reply.
Perhaps the Reader might begin with, “Elohim … Now that you have our attention …” and the congregation replies this lovely prayer.
Rabbi David Seidenberg
2012-11-05 at 1:30 pm · Reply.
Though I understand the desire to focus on immediate human needs, and I also know that the highest intentions are behind the prayer, there’s something lacking in it. What’s lacking is the recognition that we human beings are the cause of the ferocity of the storm, and that in fact God promised that the weather would turn against us if we ignored the commandment to choose life and served our own power instead of what is beyond us. That is the content of the second paragraph of the Shma. I will try to come up with an amended text in Hebrew, if I have time. May God bless the work of repair, and the deeper work of tikkun.

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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