Prayer in Heavy Sickness, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Moritz Mayer

Shared on:

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

Categories:

Well-being, health, and caregiving

Tags:

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

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)

Lord! answer and compassionate me, for I am full of distress, and humbled in mine afflictions. I am bowed down with weakness as a child, and without Thine aid, how shall I bear my troubles? Oh, that my deeds had been worthy of Thine approbation, then had my soul been satisfied and my heart rejoiced. Yet, do Thou, God! regard my contrition, hear my prayer, and lend Thy mercy even as a staff for my support. O Lord! pains and evils are inherited with the nature of man, yet my soul shall not be shaken by their approach. For, on whom shall I call for help but on Thee? And where shall I rest my hope but in Thy mercies? “Though my flesh and my heart fail; God is my consolation, my portion for ever; for, lo, they that are far from Thee shall perish, they that go after the favor of others shall be destroyed.” Ah! were my days of sorrow lengthened to the number of mine offences, yet, O Lord! I would still bless Thy name, and Thy dispensations, for Thou art my consolation, the resting place of my soul. Then, wherefore should I complain? I will resign myself to Thy will, for Thou, Lord! art the Author of my being, and wilt not destroy the work which Thou hast made. Then shall I profit from my woes, and all times rest in Thy hands; for Thou, my God! art my Savior and my Living Redeemer. Amen.

“Prayer in Heavy Sickness” 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)

Notes[+]

Notes
1	Psalms 73:26-27.

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“Prayer in Heavy Sickness, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)” 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.)

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.

Pocket Pinterest Reddit 𝕏 Facebook Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email

Works of related interest:

Detail of Moritz Mayer's prayer for a sick child (Moritz Mayer 1866).

Prayer for a Sick Child, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

Detail of Moritz Mayer's for patience and strength in adversity (Moritz Mayer 1866).

Prayer for Patience and Strength in Adversity, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

Detail of Moritz Mayer's thanksgiving prayer for deliverance (Moritz Mayer 1866).

Thanksgiving for Deliverance, by Rabbi Moritz Mayer (1866)

Detail of Marcus Heinrich Bresslau's Prayer of Thanksgiving on Recovering from Sickness

Prayer of Thanksgiving on Recovering from Sickness, by Marcus Heinrich Bresslau (1852)

in sickness (Annie Josephine Levi 1900) - cropped

In Sickness, a prayer by Annie Josephine Levi (1900)

[Prayer] in Sickness, by Lilian Helen Montagu (1895)

on recovering from sickness (Lilian H. Montagu 1895)

[Prayer] on Recovering from Sickness, by Lilian Helen Montagu (1895)

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=32451

Associated Image:

Detail of Moritz Mayer’s prayer in heavy sickness (Moritz Mayer 1866).

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

Source Data: XML | JSON

Re-formatted: HTML | 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 (editing/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=32451>.
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.)

Additional Notes:

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.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

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