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 Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category Filter resources by Language Filter resources by Date Range
These are a series of kavvanot prepared by Rabbi Emanuel S. Goldsmith (1935-2024), z”l, for a Shaḥarit service containing the call to prayer (Barkhu), the blessings preceding the Shema, tthe conclusion of the Amidah, before and after the Torah reading service, and Aleinu. Rabbi Ben Newman, who shared these kavvanot in eulogy for Rabbi Goldsmith in a Facebook post, writes, “My dear teacher, friend, and mentor Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Goldsmith died on Friday. He was an amazing man who taught me a lot about how to be a rabbi, a Reconstructionist, a liturgist, philosopher of religion, and Yiddishist. He also was the “head rabbi” who officiated at my wedding to Rabbi Shoshana Leis….I had him write out for me [these kavvanot] when I substituted for him leading at Congregation Mvakshe Derekh in Scarsdale, NY, 20 years ago as a student rabbi.” Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A prayer offered at the Broadview Detention Center for an interfaith vigil in support of the detainees and for change in US immigration policy. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A contemporary Jewish prayer for healng, used at congregation Tzedek Chicago. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): “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. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A prayer for justice offered for the Poor People’s Campaign Rally for Action at Grace Lutheran Church in Evanston on March 22, 2018. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): 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. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): Psalms 140 decries the injustice tolerated, supported, and rallied around within the community of Israel. This contemporary adaptation does the same. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A prayer for the correction of the United States immigration policy in support of immigrants and open borders. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): 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. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): 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. Categories: 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 Contributor(s): A prayer for collective and communal well-being with an emphasis on dismantling systems of oppression and repairing their harms. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): 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. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A prayer for the United States of America in the wake of the terrible events in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July 2024. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): A prayer written for the people of Washington DC during the Trump administration’s authoritarian push, August 2025. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): This invocation was given at the 78th annual George Washington Letter Reading Event, August 17, 2025 (23 Av, 5785), held by the Touro Synagogue Foundation to celebrate the famous 1790 letter exchange between the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island (represented by warden Moses Seixas) and first president of the United States, George Washington. Washington’s response to Seixas’s letter, in which he quotes some of his most iconic phrasings, is one of the first official statements by the US government on the value of religious freedom. This Letter Reading Event was held in the Old Colony House (where the Jewish community’s letter was probably presented to President Washington), rather than in the Touro Synagogue, due to Congregation Shearith Israel in New York’s barring of the Touro Synagogue Foundation from access to the building. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): “Ad d’Lo Yada” was offered by R’ Hannah Dresner and first published in In Times Like These (2026), a collection of prayers and related resources for Purim published by The Bayit: Building Jewish. Categories: Tags: Contributor(s): |
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