A Blessing for the Bees, a New Year’s prayer for 5785 by Devorah Brous (FromSoil2Soul)

Contributor(s):

Devorah Brous

Shared on:

19 September 2024 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Rosh haShanah (l’Maaseh Bereshit)

Tags:

eco-conscious, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Prayers of Jewish Farmers

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)
	Source of Life, we bless the apples and the honey, let’s also bless the bees for their sacred work alchemizing flowers into food; the bitter and the sweet. ha-D’vash v’ha-Oqets – for the honey and for (the lesson of) the sting, may we be among those who offer honey when pained from life’s sting. Remind us that bees guard what they treasure – and so do we. As we protect what we love, may we learn temperance.
	Bless the lands to overflow with blackberry and dandelion honeycomb that nourishes the beloved and beleaguered alike.
	Bless the bees that labor their love into herbal nectars and cleansing pollens to feed worlds, coat throats, and ease guts.
	Bless us to safeguard the wild meadow and food forest, school garden and urban hive.
	Remind us to revere the sacred pollinators that are too often feared, overworked, and undermined – for we are interdependent.
	May our prayers and protests yield honey and the money needed to rebuild home, hive, and heart after this great collapse.
	May wildflower honey touch lip and deed, as it drips over apples and sticks like a thick, golden salve on the wounds of skin and soul.
	Just as bees hum while foraging nectars and spreading pollen between apple flowers, may we labor with love. Bless our hands to bring sweet abundance to fruition for us all to spread. Bless us to grow and learn from the collaborative “hive mind,” through cross-pollinating our best ideas.
	Guide us far from exploiting labor through industrious buzzing until body and hive fail. May we remember to savor the sweet taste of a restorative Sabbath.
	May we be gentle and patient with ourselves and each other as we spoon honey generously in this New Year – soothing the anguish that we carry, and that we cause.
	Blessed are You, Source of All There Is, thank you for all that feeds the bees so the bees can feed all of life.
	Usher in a year of healing, forgiveness, and protection for all beings in 5785, Amen.

This prayer by Devorah Brous (fromsoil2soul), “A blessing for the bees (5785),” was first shared by the author on Shoreshshuk.

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“A Blessing for the Bees, a New Year’s prayer for 5785 by Devorah Brous (FromSoil2Soul)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Devorah Brous

Devorah Brous (@Dev.Brous, she|her) is an urban homesteader and herbalist, ritual facilitator, and earth/soul-care consultant, "root down to rise up." She holds two Masters degrees in conflict resolution and development studies. A community organizer with systems-impacted and underinvested communities for 25 years (indigenous, houseless, and formerly incarcerated people), she is the former founding Executive Director of two mission-driven environmental nonprofits, BUSTAN, and Netiya. Her practice, FromSoil2Soul, is dedicated to tending people in time-tested earth-based traditions as well as emergent wellness exercises. Rooted in mystical Judaism and earth-based Torah, her nature-based healing practice is also grounded in soil science and the wise-woman tradition of folk herbalism woven together with poetry and prayer.

Pocket Pinterest Reddit 𝕏 Facebook Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email

Works of related interest:

Invocation - Democratic National Convention 2024 (Sharon Brous, 20 August 2024)

Invocation by Rabbi Sharon Brous at the Democratic National Convention (2024)

Blessing for Rosh Ḥodesh Tishrei, by Kohenet Ilana Joy Streit

AS11-44-6552" -- a photo in the public domain from the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. (cropped by Aharon Varady).

Prayer for the Earth, Air, Water, Fire of our Planet in Memory of Barry Commoner, by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Peas on Earth, a song by the Jewish environmental educators of the Teva Learning Center (Fall 2010)

"A Computer Generated photo of what the Earth would look like from high orbit. (credit: Liftarn, license: PD)

A Prayer for the Earth, by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid.org)

"Candlelight" (credit: apdk, license: CC BY)

A Prayer before Candle-lighting, by Chaya Kaplan-Lester

"Stream in the redwoods" (credit: inajeep, license: CC BY-SA)

The Offering: A Tashlikh Prayer, by Rabbi Jill Hammer

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=57943

Associated Image:

Wild Bumblebee in flight pollinating with Crocus at the Parc naturel régional Jura vaudois (photo credit: Giles Laurent, license: CC BY-SA )

(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 Devorah Brous.
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=57943>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (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 volunteer contributors, or its 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-commercial, 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.

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