God’s Goodness — the Testament of America, a prayer for Thanksgiving Day by Rabbi Milton Steinberg (1945)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Milton Steinberg

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28 May 2019 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Categories:

Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November)

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20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, American Jewry of the United States

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	God’s Goodness — the Testament of America
	Your goodness is revealed in the Testament of America. Into this land there have assembled the outcast and the weary of the older nations of the world. Here they dreamed a new dream of a nation founded on the truth, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”^[1] Cf. the Declaration of Independence.
	And because you have been with us and your goodness has kept us strong, the freedom which they won is still ours. May we ever be worthy of our American heritage; may we ever treasure our liberties, not for ourselves alone but for all our fellowmen; and may our country become a guiding light to all mankind.
	In the words of Abraham Lincoln: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in…. To do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”^[2] President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, 1865.
	“Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?”^[3] President Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 1861.
	In founding the United States, “our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…. It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain,… That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”^[4] Text adapted from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, 1863.

“God’s Goodness — the Testament of America” by Rabbi Milton Steinberg appears on pages 559-560 of The Sabbath Prayer Book (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945) as part of a service for Thanksgiving Day. It is the last of four “testaments,” the other three being the testament of Nature, Man, and Israel, respectively.

Source(s)

Notes[+]

Notes
1	Cf. the Declaration of Independence.
2	President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, 1865.
3	President Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 1861.
4	Text adapted from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, 1863.

. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication . 1.0 . Universal .

“God’s Goodness — the Testament of America, a prayer for Thanksgiving Day by Rabbi Milton Steinberg (1945)” 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.)

Milton Steinberg

Milton Steinberg (November 25, 1903 – March 20, 1950) was an American rabbi, philosopher, theologian and author. Born in Rochester, New York, he was raised with the combination of his grandparents' traditional Jewish piety and his father's modernist socialism. He graduated as valedictorian of his class at DeWitt Clinton High School and then majored in Classics at City College of New York which he graduated from summa cum laude in 1924. Steinberg received his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University in 1928 and then entered the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he was ordained. In seminary, he was strongly influenced by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. After five years in a pulpit in Indiana, he was invited by the Seminary to assume the pulpit of Manhattan's Park Avenue Synagogue, then a small congregation with a Reform orientation. In his sixteen years at the congregation, he grew it from 120 to 750 families. In 1943 he had a near fatal heart attack. While a disciple of Kaplan who considered himself a Reconstructionist, Steinberg was critical of Kaplan's dismissal of metaphysics. Steinberg's works included Basic Judaism, The Making of the Modern Jew, A Partisan Guide to the Jewish Problem, and As A Driven Leaf, a historical novel revolving around the talmudic characters Elisha ben Abuyah and Rabbi Akiva. In his final years, he began writing a series of theological essays. This project, which he had hoped would conclude in a book of theology, was cut short by his death at age 46. An unfinished second novel, The Prophet's Wife, about the Tanakh characters Hosea and Gomer, was published in March 2010. (via his entry in Wikipedia)

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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