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O God of the fragrant flower
and the flickering leaf:
We call upon Thy Name,
at this renascent season,
when Thy life-giving spirit
quickens the silent earth,
and our cold, slumbering world
is born anew
in the golden glory
of jonquils and forsythia.
Help us,
the humble denizens
of this earth,
O Lord,
to find rebirth of hope and meaning
in our lives,
at this season,
to see the world with new-born eyes,
to believe deeply
that life and rapture
can begin again
for those whose faith
matches their need.
For
is not this,
O Father,
Thy first commandment
to us,
the Children of Israel:
“I am the Lord,
Thy God,
Who brought thee
out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house
of bondage?”[1] cf. Exodus 20:2.
If our fathers,
sunken in the mire of Egyptian slavery
for four hundred years
could find
in Thee,
the strength and the inspiration
to cast off the maiming manacles
that slashed their wrists and ankles
and surge forth to freedom
on that memorable spring night
thirty two hundred years ago,
then, surely,
no creature is so lowly,
no lot so hopeless,
that we cannot,
with Thy help,
find in it
new blessing,
and new cause for adoration.
Open our eyes,
O Lord,
to Thy wondrous works,
that we may discern Thee in our lives
each day,
and behold the world,
each morning,
as fresh
and burgeoning with hope
as it was to Noaḥ and his clan
after weeks of endless storm,
when the sun smiled over the
earth again
in a golden dawn.
Praised be Thou,
O Lord,
who bringest forth
the bread of life
from the dust
of the languid earth. Amen.
Rabbi Abraham Soltes’s “[Prayer for] Rebirth” is an undated prayer published in his collection of prayers, תפלה Invocation: A Sheaf Of Prayers (Bloch 1959). The earliest prayer in that collection dates to 1950 and we are confident this prayer can be dated between that year and the date of publication.
Rabbi Avraham Soltes (1917-1983) was a Reform Jewish rabbi, the Jewish chaplain at the United States Military Academy in West Point, an author and a leading figure in Jewish cultural affairs. He was born in New York City. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1937 and received a master's degree from Columbia University in 1938. After being ordained in 1942 by the Jewish Institute of Religion (now HUC-JIR), he served as chaplain at Cornell and McGill Universities and then was assistant rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan from 1946 to 1949. He subsequently served as rabbi at Temple Sharey Tefilo in East Orange and Temple Emanuel in Great Neck. He began his service at West Point as a voluntary chaplain in 1963 and was made a permanent member of the staff in 1981. His interests also took him into commerce, and from 1969 to 1974, he was vice president for community affairs of the Glen Alden Corporation, which in 1972 was merged into the Rapid America Corporation. From 1974 to 1977, he was assistant to the president of Tel Aviv University. He was credited with a key role in the establishment of the New York medical division at the university. In 1981, Rabbi Soltes received the Jabotinsky Award from Prime Minister Menachim Begin for his service to Israel. From 1977 until his death Rabbi Soltes had been the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Chavairuth of Bergen County, in Tenafly, N.J. He participated in many cultural and educational activities that interpreted Jewish art, music and literature. He was chairman of the National Jewish Music Council from 1963 to 1969 and a member of the board of the National Jewish Book Council from 1967 to 1972. Rabbi Soltes, a commentator on Jewish music for American listeners, was the host of a radio program, ''The Music of Israel,'' on WQXR from 1974-1983. Among his writings were Palestine in Poetry and Song of the Jewish Diaspora (Master's thesis HUC-JIR 1942) and Off The Willows: The Rebirth of Modern Jewish Music (1970).
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 naqeniשְׁגִיאוֹת 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.)
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