Awareness, a prayer-poem by Miriam Teichner (1921)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Miriam Teichner

Shared on:

30 April 2021 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Travel

Tags:

1918-1920 influenza pandemic, 20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Prayers as poems, World War Ⅰ, עדות witnessing

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	God—let me be aware. Let me not stumble blindly down the ways, Just getting somehow safely through the days, Not even groping for another hand, Not even wondering why it all was planned, Eyes to the ground unseeking for the light, Soul never aching for a wild-winged flight, Please, keep me eager just to do my share. God—let me be aware.
	God—let me be aware. Stab my soul fiercely with others’ pain, Let me walk seeing horror and stain. Let my hands, groping, find other hands. Give me the heart that divines, understands. Give me the courage, wounded, to fight. Flood me with knowledge, drench me in light. Please—keep me eager just to do my share. God—let me be aware.

“Awareness” by Miriam Teichner (1887-1963) was first published in It Can Be Done: Poems of Inspiration compiled and edited by Joseph Morris & St. Clair Adams (1921), p. 87. We are grateful to Dr. Mel Scult for mentioning the poem in a note on Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan in the Mordecai Kaplan group on Facebook: “Kaplan inserted this poem into a manuscript (circa 1950s) in which he was discussing the ethical life.”

Source(s)

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“Awareness, a prayer-poem by Miriam Teichner (1921)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft 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.)

Miriam Teichner

Miriam Teichner (1887-1963), from Detroit, was a journalist and poet. In 1915, she served as a a correspondent for the Detroit Evening News on the peace ship Oscar II that took Henry Ford to Europe on his ill-fated peace mission before World War I. Afterward she went on to work for the New York Globe.

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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