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🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12th)

This is an archive of prayers, elegies, and other works composed in honor of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), whose birthday on the 12th of February is celebrated as a civic day in the United States. (The corresponding birthdate in the Jewish calendar year would be commemorated on 26 Shevat.)

Click here to contribute a prayer you have written in honor of Abraham Lincoln.

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The Peace of Pity — three stanzas adapted from “Worship,” a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1848)

A hymn for peace and the end of war. . . .

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., anti-war, English vernacular prayer, Ethical Humanism, hymns, Openers, Philadelphia

Contributor(s): Max D. Klein, John Greenleaf Whittier and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Prayer for the United States and President Abraham Lincoln, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (15 April 1862)

This prayer by Rabbi Sabato Morais (1828-1897), of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, was initially delivered on 15 April 1862 (the first day of Passover) at the conclusion of a sermon later printed in The Philadelphia Inquirer on 23 April 1862. A copy of that sermon was preserved in the Sabato Morais Ledger (p. 22, clip no. 23). (The prayer was also read by President Abraham Lincoln, who sent Rabbi Morais an acknowledgment). The letter was read into the congressional record on 29 February 1944 by Arthur G. Klein (1904-1968, D-NY) after it was brought to light by Moshe Davis at the 44th annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society on 12-13 February 1944 (Lincoln’s Birthday). . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), War, 🇺🇸 United States of America

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Abraham Lincoln, Slaveholders' Rebellion (1861-1865), English vernacular prayer, Prayers for leaders, United States

Contributor(s): Sabato Morais and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Abide in Me, and I in You: the Soul’s Answer, a prayer-poem by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1855/1865)

A hymn by the abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, included in the hymnal of Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Philadelphia in 1926. . . .

Categories: Morning Baqashot, 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th)

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Congregation Adath Jeshurun, English vernacular prayer, hymns, paraliturgical elohai neshamah, paraliturgical modeh ani, Openers, רשות reshut

Contributor(s): Gustav Gottheil, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Prayer after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by Rabbi Sabato Morais (18 April 1865)

This prayer by Rabbi Sabato Morais was offered in conclusion to a sermon delivered at some point days after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on 15 April 1865, and reprinted in The Philadelphia Inquirer on 20 November 1865. The time of the assassination corresponded to motsei shabbat and the beginning of the 6th day of Passover 5625, and so we can imagine this prayer having been delivered at some point over the remaining two festival days of Pesaḥ, on April 17th or 18th. The prayer was preserved by Rabbi Morais in his ledger (page 24, clipping 029), an archive of newsclippings recording material he contributed to the press, among other announcements. (Many thanks to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania for helping to make this resource accessible.) Next to the clipping, Rabbi Sabato has written, “Andrew Johnson proved anything but a worthy successor to the sainted Abraham Lincoln.” . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), War, 🇺🇸 United States of America

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Abraham Lincoln, Slaveholders' Rebellion (1861-1865), assassination, Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, English vernacular prayer, Philadelphia, Ḳ.Ḳ. Miḳveh Israel (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Contributor(s): Sabato Morais and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

שריך לינקאלען | Memorial Prayer for Abraham Lincoln, by Isaac Goldstein haLevi (1865)

Exalted are you Lincoln. Who is like you! You were highly respected among Kings and Princes. All that you accomplished you did with a humble spirit. You are singular and cannot be compared to anyone else. Who among the great are like Lincoln? Who can be praised like you? . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th)

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Abraham Lincoln, acrostic, Slaveholders' Rebellion (1861-1865), American Jewry of the United States, assassination, Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, civil rights, elegies, Emancipation, Memorial prayers, Prayers for leaders, Presidents Day, קינות Ḳinōt, United States

Contributor(s): Abe Katz (translation), Isaac Goldstein, Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

אָ, קאפּיטאן! מײַן קאפּיטאן!‏ | O Captain! My Captain!, an elegy for President Abraham Lincoln by Walt Whitman (1865), Yiddish translation by Avrom Valt-Lyessin (1913)

Walt Whitman’s famous poem eulogizing President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination, in English with Yiddish translation. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th)

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Abraham Lincoln, Slaveholders' Rebellion (1861-1865), assassination, Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, elegies, Yiddish translation

Contributor(s): Walt Whitman and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

אָ, קאפּיטאן! מײַן קאפּיטאן!‏ | O Captain! My Captain!, an elegy for President Abraham Lincoln by Walt Whitman (1865), Yiddish translation by Eliezer Meler (1940)

Walt Whitman’s famous poem eulogizing President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination, in English with Yiddish translation. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th)

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Abraham Lincoln, Slaveholders' Rebellion (1861-1865), assassination, Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, elegies, Yiddish translation

Contributor(s): Eliezer Meler (translation), Walt Whitman and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

הוֹ קְבַרְנִיט! קְבַרְנִיטִי!‏ | O Captain! My Captain!, an elegy for President Abraham Lincoln by Walt Whitman (1865), Hebrew translation by Shimon Halkin (1952)

Walt Whitman’s famous poem eulogizing President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination, in English with Hebrew translation. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th)

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Abraham Lincoln, Slaveholders' Rebellion (1861-1865), assassination, Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, elegies, Hebrew translation

Contributor(s): Shimon Halkin (translation), Walt Whitman and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

זֶה הֶעָפָר הָיָה פַּעַם הָאִישׁ | This Dust was Once the Man, an elegy for President Abraham Lincoln by Walt Whitman (1871), Hebrew translation by Shimon Halkin (1952)

An elegy by Walt Whitman for President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination, in English with Hebrew translation. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th)

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Abraham Lincoln, Slaveholders' Rebellion (1861-1865), assassination, Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, elegies, Hebrew translation, United States

Contributor(s): Shimon Halkin (translation), Walt Whitman and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Needed Prophets for Our Day, a prayer-poem by Mordecai Kaplan (1942) adapted from “The Divinity School Address” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1838)

This prayer by Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, first penned in his diary for 23 August 1942, was first published in The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan, by Mel Scult (1990). Although the prayer was not included in Kaplan’s Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945), it was added to the loose-leaf prayerbook he kept at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism synagogue. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), Musaf l'Shabbat

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., Early Reconstructionist, English vernacular prayer, Prayers as poems, prophetic revelation, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalism

Contributor(s): Mordecai Kaplan and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Prayer for Brotherhood, by Stephen Vincent Benét on United Nations Flag Day (14 June 1942)

This prayer by Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) was first publicly read in 1942 in the course of a United Nations Day speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇳 United Nations, 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), 🇺🇸 Brotherhood Week, 🇺🇸 Flag Day (June 14), 🌐 United Nations Day (October 24th)

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, United States, Universal Peace, universalist prayers, vexillology, World War Ⅱ

Contributor(s): Stephen Vincent Benét and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

That Religion Be Not a Cloak for Hypocrisy, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1945)

“That Religion Be Not a Cloak for Hypocrisy,” by Rabbi Mordecai Menaḥem Kaplan can be found on p. 435-5 of his The Sabbath Prayer Book (New York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation, 1945). . . .

Categories: Tishah b'Av, 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), Roleplaying, Repenting, Resetting, and Reconciliation

Tags: 20th century C.E., 57th century A.M., communal shame, corruption, difference disagreement and deviance, English vernacular prayer, false piety, חלול ה׳ Ḥillul Hashem, improper use of the crown, inclusion and exclusion, labor exploitation, Psalms 5, religious hypocrisy, tolerance and intolerance

Contributor(s): Mordecai Kaplan and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

An American Covenant of Brotherhood, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and Eugene Kohn (1945)

A civic prayer for the Sabbath occurring during Brotherhood Week (February 19th-28th) in the United States. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), 🇺🇸 George Washington's Birthday (3rd Monday of February), 🇺🇸 Brotherhood Week

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, anti-fascist, anti-racist, civic prayers, pluralism, United States

Contributor(s): Eugene Kohn, Mordecai Kaplan and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck on 12 February 1948

The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on Lincoln’s Birthday, 12 February 1948. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), 🇺🇸 United States of America, Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies

Tags: 80th Congress, 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., Abraham Lincoln, Containment, English vernacular prayer, U.S. House of Representatives, Prayers for leaders, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, תחינות teḥinot

Contributor(s): Leo Baeck and the Congressional Record of the United States of America

Opening Prayer on the Significance of Lincoln’s Birthday, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

This opening prayer-essay for Lincoln’s Birthday, “The Significance of the Day,” was first published in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951) — as preface to a number of readings selected by Mordecai Kaplan, Eugene Kohn, and J. Paul Williams for the day. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th)

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

Contributor(s): John Paul Williams, Eugene Kohn, Mordecai Kaplan and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Prayer for National Holiday, by Rabbi Morrison David Bial (1962)

“Prayer for National Holiday” by Rabbi Morrison David Bial was first published in his anthology, An Offering of Prayer (1962), p. 71, from where this prayer was transcribed. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th), 🇺🇸 George Washington's Birthday (3rd Monday of February), 🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th), 🇺🇸 Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November), 🇺🇸 United States of America

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., civil rights, English vernacular prayer, United States

Contributor(s): Morrison David Bial and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

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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