This is an archive of prayers offered for the success of the democratically elected government of the United States of America and the well-being of its multicultural civil society. Click here to contribute a prayer you have written for the United States. Filter resources by Collaborator Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category Filter resources by Language Filter resources by Date Range
Prayers recited on special occasions and thus not part of the fixed liturgy offered America’s foremost Jewish congregation far greater latitude for originality in prayer. At such services, particularly when the prayers were delivered in English and written with the knowledge that non-Jews would hear them, leaders of Shearith Israel often dispensed with the traditional prayer for the government and substituted revealing new compositions appropriate to the concerns of the day. A prayer composed in 1784 (in this case in Hebrew) by the otherwise unknown Rabbi (Cantor?) Hendla Jochanan van Oettingen, for example, thanked God who “in His goodness prospered our warfare.” Mentioning by name both Governor George Clinton and General George Washington, the rabbi prayed for peace and offered a restorationist Jewish twist on the popular idea of America as “redeemer nation”: “As Thou hast granted to these thirteen states of America everlasting freedom,” he declared, “so mayst Thou bring us forth once again from bondage into freedom and mayst Thou sound the great horn for our freedom.” . . . The following prayer for the government was composed by Congregation Beth Shalome in Richmond, Virginia in 1789. Please note the acrostic portion of the prayer in which the initial letters of the succeeding lines form the name: Washington. . . . “Ribon kol ha-Olamim” was almost certainly written by Rabbi Max Lilienthal in 1846 soon after he arrived in New York City where he was elected chief rabbi of New York’s “united German-Jewish community.” It was first published in L. Henry Frank’s prayerbook, Tefilot Yisrael: Prayers of Israel with an English translation (1848) without attribution. In 1998, Dr. Jonathan Sarna elucidated its authorship in an article, “A Forgotten 19th Century Prayer for the U.S. Government: Its Meaning, Significance and Surprising Author.” In Hesed Ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs, eds. J. Magness and S. Gitin, 431-440. Athens, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1998. . . . An original prayer for the government of the United States, Ohio, and the city of Cincinnati by Rabbi H.A. Henry was published in an article, “Emendation of the Liturgy” in The Asmonean (21 June 1850), p. 6. . . . This prayer for the government of a Republic (in contradistinction to a Kingdom) was offered in a Letter to the Editor by Abraham Prince (as “A. Prince”), an optician representing their Boston congregation, Ohabei Shalom.[foot]For more on Abraham Prince, Ohabei Shalom, and Boston’s early Jewish community, find “Boston: A Close Community” by Robert P. Swierenga in The Forerunners: Dutch Jewry in the North American Diaspora (2018).[/foot] The prayer appeared in The Asmonean (26 November 1852), on page 5. At the time, reformist minded rabbis and congregations in the United States were interested in liturgical alternatives to the form of the prayer for the government found in Hanotén Teshu’ah, to more pointedly or appropriately signal their approval of the representative government that guaranteed their minority rights and equal representation under the Constitution. . . . “Father of nations! Judge divine!” by Penina Moïse, was published in 1856, and appears under the subject of “Our Country” as Hymn 149 in Hymns Written for the Use of Hebrew Congregations (Penina Moïse et al., Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim, 1856), pp. 144-146. . . . A prayer for the government composed by the Central Conference of American Rabbis and included in their Union Prayer Book. . . . A prayer for the government offered by a first generation immigrant to the United States. . . . A prayer for the government of President William Howard Taft and Vice-President James Sherman offered by a first generation immigrant to the United States. . . . A prayer on behalf of the government of the United States of America by one of the leading architects of Modern Orthodoxy in America. . . . A prayer on behalf of the government of the United States of America by one of the leading architects of Modern Orthodoxy in America. . . . The prayer for the government familiar to all Conservative movement congregations, as written by Rabbi Dr. Louis Ginzberg with an English translation by Rabbi Tim Bernard. . . . The full text of Rabbi Jacob Goldstein’s prayer offered at the Democratic National Convention, July 14th, 1992. . . . A prayer for the government and of good governance in the United States of America. . . . A prayer for the great aspirations of the country of the United States of America. . . . A prayer for a government when that government is causing pain through malicious policies. . . . A prayer for collective and communal well-being with an emphasis on dismantling systems of oppression and repairing their harms. . . . |
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