Opening Prayer on the Significance of Arbor Day, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, J. Paul Williams, and Eugene Kohn (1951)

This opening prayer for Arbor Day, “The Significance of the Day,” was first published in The Faith of America: Readings, Songs, and Prayers for the Celebration of American Holidays (Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 1951), p. 3-4 — as preface to a number of readings selected by Mordecai Kaplan, Eugene Kohn, and J. Paul Williams for the day. . . .

Categories:

🇺🇸 Arbor Day (last Friday of April), Planting

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, civic prayers, ecumenical prayers, English vernacular prayer, planting trees, United States

Contributor(s):

John Paul Williams, Eugene Kohn, Mordecai Kaplan and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

[Prayer for a] Tree Planting, by Rabbi Avraham Samuel Soltes (1952)

A prayer for planting a tree or trees. . . .

Categories:

🇺🇸 Arbor Day (last Friday of April), Planting

Tags:

20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, North American Jewry, planting trees, Prayers for Planting

Contributor(s):

Avraham Samuel Soltes and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/index.php?cat=3791

Associated Image:

Arbor Day, Wild Animal Park, Girl Scout Plants Tree Assisted by Leader (circa 1979-1986)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute any information in the description of this archive page to the Open Siddur Project (<https://opensiddur.org>).
Clearly indicate the date you accessed this page and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this archive: <https://opensiddur.org/index.php?cat=3791>.
Indicate that the original page was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this page in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the CC BY-SA license.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed on this page and in these shared works represents the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17

Pocket Reddit Facebook Bluesky Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email