Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Israel Zoberman on 11 December 2014

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Date: 2018-09-02

Last Updated: 2025-02-18

Categories: 🇺🇸 United States of America, Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies

Tags: 113th Congress, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, U.S. Senate, תחינות teḥinot

Excerpt: The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 11 December 2014. . . .

Content:

Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Israel Zoberman, Founding Rabbi of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach, VA.
Sponsor: Senator Mark Warner
Date of Prayer: 11 December 2014

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Our one God of life’s blessings, Who brings us together to be one family (gratefully united though gloriously diverse) through the Divine commandments of loving-kindness.
	May the awesome Author of an enchanting yet endangered universe uplift our honored Senators with the essential twin gifts of freedom and responsibility, ever fulfilling the demanding American dream.
	At these crossroads of compelling challenge, may the Senators be reassured that each human life is a singular journey of promising purpose, that the Creator’s divinity and human dignity are inseparably linked.
	May the Most High bless the Senators, the Nation, and humanity with SHALOM’s sacred healing, hope, and harmony.
	Recalling my early childhood in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany’s American Zone, and on my 40th anniversary in the rabbinic ministry in the most ecumenical Nation under Heaven, I am grateful.
אָמֵן׃	Amen.

Source(s)

113th Congress, 2nd Session. Congressional Record, Issue: Vol. 160, No. 151 — Daily Edition (December 11, 2014)

Contributor: the Congressional Record of the United States of America

Co-authors:

Name: the Congressional Record of the United States of America
Bio: The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Printing Office and issued when Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. Statutory authorization for the Congressional Record is found in Chapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Code. (wikipedia)
Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Record
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/united-states-congressional-record

Name: Israel Zoberman
Bio: Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is the Founding Rabbi of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Born in 1945 in Chu, Kazakhstan (USSR) to Polish Holocaust survivors who had met in Siberia, Rabbi Zoberman spent his early childhood in Poland, Austria and from 1947 to 1949 at Germany’s Wetzlar Displaced Persons Camp, American Zone. He grew up in Haifa, Israel and served in the IDF in the 1960s before emigrating to the United States in 1966. Rabbi Zoberman is the only rabbi to earn a doctorate in Pastoral Care and Counseling from Chicago’s McCormick Theological Seminary, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. A resident of Virginia since 1981, he served one year as Associate Rabbi at Ohef Sholom Temple in Norfolk before founding Congregation Beth Chaverim, the first Reform synagogue in Virginia Beach. In 1999, his alma mater, Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, awarded him the honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree.
Website: http://www.jewishnewsva.org/forty-years-a-rabbi-rabbi-israel-zoberman/
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/israel-zoberman

Featured Image:

Title: Flag_of_the_United_States_Senate.svg
Caption: Flag of the United States Senate