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
A prayer for the continuance of “the American way of life” offered during the Cold War (1947-1953) in northern New Jersey. . . . A prayer for American democracy as enshrined in Little League Baseball. . . . This undated “Prayer for Peace Celebration” by the Hon. Lily H. Montagu (1873-1963) from the archives of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, was published in, Lily Montagu: Sermons, Addresses, Letters, and Prayers (ed. Ellen M. Umansky, 1985), p. 356. . . . Prayer delivered by Rabbi Uri Miller, President of the Synagogue Council of America, at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963 . . . The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 18 February 1969. . . . An original Hebrew translation of the blues-rock portion of the Agnus Dei movement from Leonard Bernstein’s MASS (note: always spelled with ALL CAPS), where the crowd of disaffected and disillusioned young parishioners interrupts the offertory to demand peace now, and hold God to account for not giving it to us. It’s unsurprising that for a composer as proudly and openly Jewish as Bernstein that even his setting of the Tridentine Mass has major “shaking your fist at God” energy. Not gonna lie, I was listening to this on a plane out of Jerusalem as the war was starting, and I started to tear up. I immediately started writing this translation and finished it up in the process of about an hour while stuck somewhere a few thousand feet above Greenland. It’s amazing and moving and tragic and enraging and a little full of itself in exactly the right way to hit me in the heart. . . . 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 A prayer offered at the Broadview Detention Center for an interfaith vigil in support of the detainees and for change in US immigration policy. . . . A contemporary Jewish prayer for healng, used at congregation Tzedek Chicago. . . . A personal declaration to become a shomer/et shalom on Yom Kippur. . . . Master of compassion and forgiveness, Cosmic Majesty Who is peace— Teach us Your ways, Show us the path that preserves life. Take note, Lord, for we are suffering deeply. Our guts are wrenched, Our hearts are turning within us. Violence has devoured outside, and inside it feels deathly. When enemies rose up against us to kill our babes, Courageous, precious boys, full of the light of life, shining like the radiance of the sky, Our hearts became angry, our vision lost its strength, and our spirits sunk. And still we turn to you— . . . A prayer in Hebrew and Arabic (with translations in English and German) of solidarity of mothers for there to be peace in the world for the sake of their children. . . . A teḥinah (supplication) for divine help after terrible violence that interferes with the recognition of each person being made in the likeness of the divine image. . . . “Does joy come in the morning, where weeping has not tarried for the night? Can we dance together, if we have not yet joined in lament?” This prayer is a kavanah for the morning blessings, using language and images from the prayer “Mah Tovu” [how lovely are your tents] commonly recited in the early morning blessings. Offered with special intention for the healing of Congress Heights, Capitol View, and other neighborhoods in Washington, DC, rocked by persistent violence. . . . A translation in Arabic and English of Rabbi Nava Hafetz’s prayer for the children of the world. . . . Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Arabic translation, English Translation, ארץ ישראל Erets Yisrael, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Jewish-Muslim Friendship, Prayers on behalf of children, safety, תחינות teḥinot, the Next Generation, Universal Peace A prayer for justice offered for the Poor People’s Campaign Rally for Action at Grace Lutheran Church in Evanston on March 22, 2018. . . . A prayer for universal peace offered by Hillel Yisraeli-Lavery as an opening prayer to a talk given in Hamilton, Canada by 2011 Nobel Prize winner Leymah Gbowee. . . . A prayer for a government when that government is causing pain through malicious policies. . . . Psalms 140 decries the injustice tolerated, supported, and rallied around within the community of Israel. This contemporary adaptation does the same. . . . A prayer for the correction of the United States immigration policy in support of immigrants and open borders. . . . A prayer for human solidarity to mitigate the danger that comes when our particular identity as Bnei Yisrael greatly eclipses our universal identity as Bnei Adam. . . . An invocation by Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of T’ruah, offered at the opening dinner of the Council on Foreign Relations annual Religion and Foreign Policy Workshop, June 2019. . . . Tags: 116th Congress, 21st century C.E., 45th President of the United States, 58th century A.M., democracy, English vernacular prayer, Immigration policy of Donald Trump, Trump administration family separation policy, צדק צדק תרדוף tsedeq tsedeq tirdof, United States, United States Immigration Policy Based on the Prayer For Freedom from Strife and the Prayer that One Be a Lover and a Pursuer of Peace taken from the Liqutei Tefilot of Reb Nosson of Nemirov. Edited and reworked by Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum. English Translation: Rabbi Martin S. Cohen. . . . A prayer for collective and communal well-being with an emphasis on dismantling systems of oppression and repairing their harms. . . . A prayer for the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), written in response to their laudable decision to halt the deportation of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda. . . . A prayer for peace amidst civil disagreement, difference, and strife before the lighting of Shabbat candles on Erev Shabbat. . . . A mi sheberakh prayer for the preservation of democracy in the face of the judicial reforms of the 37th government of the State of Israel. . . . A prayer for the United States of America in the wake of the terrible events in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July 2024. . . . |
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