Prayer on the Grave of a Brother, by Marcus Heinrich Bresslau (1852)

Contributor(s):

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

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

Categories:

Mourning

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

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	With a deeply moved heart I tread this day towards thy grave, O my beloved brother—yet inconsolable for the heavy loss which thy departure from this world hath entailed upon me. The unchangeable council of the Most High has removed thee from my sight in the (bloom of youth), (prime of manhood), and the heart which ever preserved brotherly love and faithfulness towards me has ceased to beat. Alas! when I remember the hours we passed together in our paternal home, how thy pious converse exhorted me to all good, how thy wise council extricated me from many troubles, how often I have drawn instruction from the rich treasures of thy experience, I might dissolve myself in tears at the deprivation of all these blessings. The strength of my faith in the immortality of the soul can alone give me ease in my grief, for it is the perishable cover only which crumbles into dust, but thy noble and better self already rests in the shadow of the Almighty.
	The good examples which thou gavest me and all around thee during life are not lost, they live even now after thy death; thou didst not permit the time of thy being on earth to be unprofitably spent; thou hast striven to advance everything noble and good, and hast exerted thyself to regulate thy course according to virtue and the fear of God. May the remembrance of thee, my beloved brother, never forsake me; may it guard me against levity and vanity, may it protect me against folly and sin. Thou, who hast been the delight of my eyes and the pride of my heart, surely thy spirit desireth not that I should abandon myself to immoderate sorrow and unbounded grief, to the neglect of my other duties; but rather that I should faithfully and willingly continue to perform all the obligations incumbent upon me.
	May the Holy God of Israel, “who doth not deliver up the soul to destruction, nor His pious servants to see corruption,”^[1] Psalms 16:10. not remember those sins, from which no human being is free; may he admit thee into the gates of eternal bliss, and refresh thee from the stream of never failing joys. Amen.

“Prayer on the Grave of a Brother” 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	Psalms 16:10.

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“Prayer on the Grave of a Brother, 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