This is an archive of prayers composed for mourning. Some are for personal or private use. Others are for public, communal, and ceremonial functions. Some follow the formula of a Mourner’s Ḳaddish (Qaddish Yatom), others that of El Malé Raḥamim, and still others are adaptations or free-form with or without Hebrew, reflecting upon grief and interconnection and composed in a vernacular tongue. Click here to contribute your own prayers of mourning. Filter resources by Collaborator Name Filter resources by Tag Filter resources by Category Filter resources by Language Filter resources by Date Range
“Meditation on Death” by Grace Aguilar was published posthumously by her mother Sarah Aguilar in the UK edition of Sacred Communings, pp. 82-87. It is not found in the US edition. A note on the title indicates clarifies that Grace wrote this in June 1835. Another note in the text (from Sarah) shares that Grace’s posture towards death in this prayer also appeared to describe her experience of passing twelve years later in 1847. . . . “God of my fathers! merciful and just,” by Caroline de Litchfield Harby (ca.1800-1876), first published in 1842, appears under the subject “Immortality of the Soul” as Hymn 53 in Hymns Written for the Service of the Hebrew Congregation Beth Elohim, South Carolina (Penina Moïse et al., Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim, 1842), p. 55. That page is missing in the one copy of the first edition we know to exist. Thankfully, the hymn appears under the same subject as Hymn 39 in Hymns Written for the Use of Hebrew Congregations (Penina Moïse et al., Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim, 1856), p. 43. . . . A prayer of a daughter on the yahrzeit of her mother or father. . . . A prayer of a person who has lost their parent or parents. . . . A prayer of a wife grieving over the death of her husband. . . . A prayer of a sister mourning at the grave of her sister. . . . A prayer of a mother grieving over the death of her child. . . . A prayer of a sister mourning at the grave of her brother. . . . “Future Happiness” by Rosa Emma Collins née Salaman was published in her bound collections of poetry, Poems (1853), p. 35-39. . . . “Heaven” by Rosa Emma Collins née Salaman was published in her bound collections of poetry, Poems (1853), pp. 72-76. . . . A prayer for a daughter mounrning at the grave of her mother. . . . A prayer for a woman visiting the grave of her brother or sister. . . . A prayer for a woman mounrning at the grave of her child. . . . A prayer of a woman and mother who has lost her husband and is contemplating desperate circumstances. . . . A prayer of an orphan after the death of one or both of her parents. . . . A prayer of a daughter for mourning on the yortseit of one or both of her parents. . . . A prayer for one’s parent or parents during Yizkor. . . . This prayer by Rabbi Sabato Morais after the death of President Ulysses S. Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) concludes a eulogy published in the The Jewish Record on 14 August 1885, “General Grant: Substance of a Discourse Delivered Last Sabbath by the Rev. S. Morais.” A note in the preface to the article dates the eulogy to the preceding Sabbath, 8 August 1885. The article was preserved in a newspaper clipping found on page 338 of the Sabato Morais Ledger. . . . “The Children’s Song” is a hymn by Felix Adler, first published in The Ethical Record vol. 1, no. 1. (April 1888), sheet music page 5. . . . Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., cemetery prayers, child mortality, children's prayers, English vernacular prayer, Ethical Humanism, גלגול נפשות gilgul nefashot, hymns, memento mori, universalist “Prayer for a Dear Relation or Friend Who is Ill” was written by Lilian Helen Montagu and published in Prayers for Jewish Working Girls (1895), pp. 26-27. . . . “On the loss of a beloved one (in the morning)” was written by Annie Josephine Levi and published in her anthology of teḥinot in English, Meditations of the Heart (1900), pp. 148-149. . . . “On the loss of a beloved one (in the evening)” was written by Annie Josephine Levi and published in her anthology of teḥinot in English, Meditations of the Heart (1900), pp. 156-157. . . . Basil L.Q. Henriques’s prayer “For those in sorrow” was first published in The Fratres Book of Prayer for the Oxford and St. George’s Synagogue Jewish Lads Club in 1916, and later reprinted in the Prayer Book of the St. George’s Settlement Synagogue (1929), “Special Prayers” section, page 99. . . . A prayer written by a son upon the death of his mother. . . . My bones whisper that your pages and your inks will return to the trees and the plants from where they once came. They say that someday they will even come back to life with words never yet heard. . . . A paraliturgical yizkor prayer. . . . This prayer was written to introduce the service at a shiva minyan. . . . This eulogy by Andrew Meit was read at Temple Beit Ami in Rockville, Maryland at the funeral of Benjamin Meit. Andrew writes, “Ben would have turned 19 next week. He died from complications from depression and mental illness.” Donations in Ben’s memory may be made here. If you or anyone you know is in need of help, please call 911, or 1-800 273 8255, the national suicide prevention hotline. . . . A “secular” kaddish after my mother died so that I could say kaddish under circumstances where I could gather ten people but not ten Jews. . . . A meditation on living through the lens of dying. . . . “Things that are not to be,” a prayer-poem by Rabbi Hanna Yerushalmi (LGPC) in the event of a pregnancy loss was first published in Mishkan R’fuah: Where Healing Resides (CCAR 2013), p. 49-50. . . . “An infinity of amens” was written by Hanna Yerushalmi on 15 October 2023 in the aftermath of the massacres on Shemini Atseret 5784. . . . This prayer after the horrors of 7 October 2023 perpetrated by Hamas and its allies was first offered by Rabbi Lior Bar-Ami sometime before May 2024. . . . |
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