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Oh, Gracious and Almighty God,
be pleased to pour Thy blessing
on the friends I have chosen;
those whom Thou in Thy great mercy
hast vouchsafed me,
to sweeten the daily tasks and troubles,
pleasures and enjoyments, of this life:
Oh pour Thy blessing on them
and accept their prayers;
and grant, Oh Eternal,
that we may soon meet again,
with that friendship
which is now my happiness,
shining pure and holy,
untarnished by distance,
unsullied by absence.
Oh, grant
that we may still love each other apart,
as we did when we were together,
and that affection may last
through joy and gladness,
through sorrow and suffering,
till death divide us.
Hear me, Oh gracious God!
hear me from Thy throne of mercy and of love.
Oh, look down with benignity
on a repentant child of Israel,
and if my prayer be deemed acceptable in Thy sight,
oh my God,
for the sake of Thy great and holy Name,
oh answer me!
Blessed be Thy name for evermore.
“Prayer (Oh, Gracious and Almighty God)”, a prayer for the well-being of friends, by Grace Aguilar was published posthumously by her mother Sarah Aguilar in Essays and Miscellanies (1853), in the section “Sacred Communings,” pp. 168-169. The prayer does not appear in the UK edition of Sacred Communings (1853).
Grace Aguilar (2 June 1816 – 16 September 1847) was an English novelist, poet and writer on Jewish history and religion. Although she had been writing since childhood, much of her work was published posthumously. Among those are her best known works, the novels Home Influence and A Mother's Recompense. Aguilar was the eldest child of Sephardic Jewish refugees from Portugal who settled in the London Borough of Hackney. An early illness resulted in her being educated by her parents, especially her mother, who taught her the tenets of Judaism. Later, her father taught the history of Spanish and Portuguese Jews during his own bout with tuberculosis which had led the family to move to the English coast. After surviving the measles at the age of 19, she began to embark on a serious writing career, even though her physical health never completely recovered. Aguilar's debut was an anonymous collection of poems, The Magic Wreath of Hidden Flowers. Three years later she translated Isaac Orobio de Castro's Israel Defended into English at her father's behest. Later her The Spirit of Judaism drew interest and sales in both Britain and the United States after being published in Philadelphia by Isaac Leeser. He added a preface to the work elucidating his differences with her, the first of many clashes her work would have with mainstream Jewish thought. In the 1840s her novels began to attract regular readers, and Aguilar moved back to London with her parents. Despite her success, she and her mother still had to operate a boys' Hebrew school to stay solvent, which she resented for the time and energy it took from her writing. In 1847, she became ill again with a spinal paralysis which she did not let prevent her from visiting her brother in Frankfurt. Her health worsened and she died there that September.
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 naqeniשְׁגִיאוֹת 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.)
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