This is an archive of prayers composed for, or relevant to, demands for social justice, peace, and liberty. Click here to contribute a prayer you have written, or a transcription and translation of a historical prayer. Filter resources by Collaborator Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category Filter resources by Language Filter resources by Date Range
Resources filtered by COLLABORATOR: “Unknown Author(s)” (clear filter)In this Tefilat haDerekh (the prayer for travel), I’ve made a synthesis of Ashkenazi and Sefardi nusaḥ. Even though the translation is pretty close to literal in most places, it comes across as an extraordinary and activist prayer for peace. So I think of this prayer not just as a prayer for the beginning a physical journey, but for any spiritual journey, and especially for any campaign or action for justice and peace that a person or group might undertake. When applied to activism, the “enmity and ambush and theft and predation” we ask to be rescued from could also be interpreted as hatred, deceit, jealousy, and aggression, i.e., the kinds of feelings that cause people to work against each other, even within an organization, instead of working together. I first used this version of the prayer at the beginning of a tour of Israel and Palestine focused on the human rights and non-violent resistance, when the group passed through the first checkpoint of the trip. . . . This prayer of praise of Tsar Alexander II (1818-1881), for largely ending feudalism by emancipating the serfs of the Russian Empire was written by an unknown author and published in HaMelitz on Thursday, 28 March 1861. . . . Variations of the original three lines culminating with “…walk beside me…” first appear in high school yearbooks beginning in 1970. The earliest recorded mention we could find was in The Northern Light, the 1970 yearbook of North Attleboro High School, Massachusetts. In the Jewish world of the early to mid-1970s, a young Moshe Tanenbaum began transmitting the lines at Jewish summer camps. In 1979, as Uncle Moishy, Tanenbaum published a recording of the song under the title “v’Ohavta” (track A4 on The Adventures of Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men, volume 2). . . . Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., political and religious anarchism, Arabic translation, Aramaic translation, children's education, Hebrew translation, love your fellow as yourself, Pedagogical songs, Universal Peace, universalist, universalist prayers, Yiddish translation, זמירות zemirot |
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