Courage to Withstand the Ridicule of the Worldly, a prayer by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1945)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Mordecai Kaplan

Shared on:

ג׳ באב ה׳תשע״ח (2018-07-15) under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Categories:

Well-being, health, and caregiving, Labor, Fulfillment, and Parnassah, Bedtime Shema

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., Psalms 4, English vernacular prayer, Amits Koaḥ, lonely man of faith, social anxiety, yetser hara, loneliness, ayin hara, lashon hara, apotropaic prayers of protection

Contribute a translation	English
	Courage to Withstand the Ridicule of the Worldly Suggested by Psalm 4
	O God, when I strive to live in accord with your will, to deal honestly, to act kindly, to pursue justice and peace, I find but few to hearten me.
	Many are they who deride me and mock my ways.
	Grant me, O YHVH, the strength to resist the swirling eddy of worldly ambition that would suck me into the vortex of envy, struggle, and hate.
	Give me the courage to withstand the derision of those who sneer at virtue, lest my spirit be cowed.
	To those who, in their unbridled greed, take joy in hoarding riches and wielding dominion I would retort: O, ye fools, in vain ye seek to slake your thirst for wealth and power.
	Your discontent must grow with each new draft.
	All your scheming and all your lying will bring you naught but failure.
	You will yearn in vain for a moment of inner peace and for a sign of God’s approval.
	Not such is my lot; though my means be slender, and they who befriend me few, yet my cup overflows with happiness.
	The zest I have in life all your wealth can never yield.
	Peacefully I lay me down at night to sleep, in calm reliance on God’s blessed love.

“Courage to Withstand the Ridicule of the Worldly,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 433-4 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). I have adapted the original text of this prayer, replacing “thy” with ‘your’ and “Lord” with ‘YHVH’. –Aharon N. Varady

Source(s)

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“Courage to Withstand the Ridicule of the Worldly, a prayer by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1945)” is shared by Aharon N. Varady (transcription) with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project, which he founded and directs. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin, Ministarot Nakeni 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. Besides his transcription work, Varady occasionally translates prayers and contributes his own original work. (Varady also serves as editor and administrator of the Open Siddur Project website, opensiddur.org, and is an outspoken advocate for open-source in Judaism more of which can be read about in this interview in the Atlantic Magazine.)

Mordecai Kaplan

Mordecai Menahem Kaplan (June 11, 1881 – November 8, 1983), was a rabbi, essayist and Jewish educator and the co-founder of Reconstructionist Judaism along with his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein.

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Jesse Owens, 1936 Olympics, Berlin

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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