Prayer of an Orphan, by Marcus Heinrich Bresslau (1852)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Marcus Heinrich Bresslau

Shared on:

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

Categories:

Mourning

Tags:

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

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Source (English)

Heavenly Father! Thy inscrutable justice has willed it, that my dear parent should be taken away from me, and that with this loss I should be deprived of my greatest happiness. Alas Father! how heavy and afflicting was this punishment for a weak heart, which—now already weighed down by intense grief—would lie in the dust, had not the religion of my fathers taught me that Thou art called אֲבִי יְתוֹמִים “Father of Orphans,” I am now Thy child, Thy heir, Thou wilt be my parent unto eternity, Thou the mightiest Father in heaven and earth. Thou wilt hear me as often as I call upon Thee, Thou wilt protect me when I walk in Thy ways. To Thy paternal hand I now commit my spiritual weal. I trust in Thy fatherly love, and exclaim with the psalmist כִּי־אַתָּה תָּאִיר נֵרִי יְיָ אֱלֹהַי יַגִּיהַּ חָשְׁכִּי “For thou wilt light my lamp: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.” Amen.

“Prayer of an Orphan” was first published in Marcus Heinrich Bresslau’s collection of teḥinot, Teḥinot Banot Yisrael: Devotions for the Daughters of Israel (1852).

Source(s)

Notes[+]

Notes
1	Or Parents, if an orphan of both father and mother.
2	Psalms 68:6.
3	Psalms 18:29.

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“Prayer of an Orphan, by Marcus Heinrich Bresslau (1852)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal 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.)

Marcus Heinrich Bresslau

Marcus Heinrich (also Mordecai Ḥayyim/Hyman/Heyman) Bresslau (ca. 1808-15 May 1864) was a Hebraist and newspaper editor. Born in Hamburg, he settled in England when young. For some time from 1834 he was Baal Ḳoreh (reader) at the Western Synagogue. He then taught Hebrew at the Westminster Jews’ Free School and went on to tutor privately. A maskil, he became involved with M. J. Raphall’s Hebrew Review and Magazine of Rabbinical Literature (1834-6). In October 1844 he was appointed editor of the relaunched Jewish Chronicle by proprietor Joseph Mitchell. Prickly and quarrelsome, he resigned in July 1848 but returned in around September. He remained until about October 1850. After Mitchell’s death in June 1854 he became proprietor (his middle name appearing as Heyman) and edited it until February 1855 when new proprietor Abraham Benisch succeeded him. Bresslau, who tried vainly to revive the Hebrew Review, wrote Hebrew poetry, produced a Hebrew grammar and a Hebrew dictionary, and translated various Hebrew manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. Bresslau compiled (we think) the first compilation of teḥinot in English for women. (Much of this information via Bresslau's entry in The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History)

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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