[Prayer] at the Grave of a Child, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Moritz Mayer

Shared on:

21 June 2020 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Categories:

Mourning

Tags:

English vernacular prayer, cemetery prayers, 19th century C.E., תחינות teḥinot, 57th century A.M., Jewish Women's Prayers, prayers concerning children

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.

TABLE HELP

Contribute a translation

Source (English)

Sweetly slumbering the darling of my heart rests here my dear, early departed child; peace unto (his/her) soul! God of grace and mercy! forgive the depressed heart of a mother trembling in unutterable woe! Alas! the blossom that death broke off, was my happiness, and the life which wvas extinguished at Thy command, filled my heart with cheering hopes. By the side of my darling child, taken away so soon, I hope to enjoy the delight of existence in double measure, to endure more easily all sufferings, and to look towards my end without fear and trembling; for I hoped that (his/her) hand would close my eyes. But Thy thoughts, O Lord, are not our thoughts, Thy ways are not our ways. Thou hadst given me my beloved child, Thou hast taken (him her) away, Thy name be praised! Yea, even from the depth of my grief I worship Thee with reverence. Whatever Thou doest is well done; Thou art our loving Father when Thou blessest and when Thou chastizest, when Thou givest and when Thou takest away, when Thou grantest life and when Thou sendest death. Thou woundest and bindest up again, Thou strikest, and Thy hand healeth again. Therefore, I pray unto Thee, Eternal God! fill Thou my saddened heart with consolation. Strengthen my confidence in Thine alljust ordinations, preserve me in obedience to Thy holy will. Forgive my sins, O Lord! and deliver me from all evil. Let the spirit of my child enjoy fulness of joy in Thy glorious habitation of peace; open unto it the source of truth and light, and let it ascend higher and higher in its everlasting salvation. Amen.

“At the Grave of a Child” is one of thirty prayers appearing in Rabbi Moritz Mayer’s collection of tehinot, Hours of Devotion (1866), of uncertain provenance and which he may have written. –Aharon Varady

Source(s)

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“[Prayer] at the Grave of a Child, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)” is shared by the living contributor(s) with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal 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.)

Moritz Mayer

Rabbi Moritz Mayer (originally Moses Maier, later Maurice Mayer; 1821-1867) born in Dürckheim-on-the-Haardt, Germany, fled to the United States and to New York as a political refugee of the 1848 revolution. In 1859, after seven years as the rabbi of Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina, he returned in poor health to New York where he contributed frequently to the Jewish press, and translated various German works into English: Rabbi Samuel Adler's catechism, Abraham Geiger's lectures on Jewish history, and Ludwig Philipson's pamphlet, Haben die Juden Jesum Gekreuzigt? (the Crucifixion from the Jewish Point of View), et al. In 1866, a number of his English translations of Fanny Neuda's teḥinot in German (from her Stunden Der Andacht, 1855/1858) were published in a volume he titled Hours of Devotion. The work also included a number of his own prayers as well as those of Marcus Heinrich Bresslau. The following year, Moritz Mayer passed away. He was 45 years old.(We are indebted to Anton Hieke for his research on Mayer, "Rabbi Maurice Mayer: German Revolutionary, Charleston Reformer, and Anti-Abolitionist" published in Southern Jewish Life, 17 (2014), pp. 45-89.)For Mayer's translations of prayers by other authors, please visit here.

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=32380

Associated Image:

Detail of Moritz Mayer’s prayer for visiting a grave of a child.

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in category lists and in shared links on social media.)

This post, editable: XML | ODT

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

Properly attribute the work to Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Moritz Mayer.
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=32380>.
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.)

Note: 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 contributors, patrons, or institutional partners.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, 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. If you like what you've found here, please help keep our project alive and online with your financial contribution.

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