A Prayer of Healing for Mental Illness, by Rabbi Elliot Kukla
Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=41747
open_content_license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license Date: 2022-01-03
Last Updated: 2025-02-18
Categories: Well-being, health, and caregiving
Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., Distress, English vernacular prayer, wrestling
Excerpt: "A Prayer of Healing for Mental Illness" was written by Rabbi Elliot Kukla for the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center and was first published in Where Healing Resides (CCAR 2013), p. 91. . . .
Content:
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A Prayer of Healing for Mental Illness
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May the One who blessed our ancestors
bless me with strength and healing
as I struggle with emotional distress
and mental suffering.
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May I walk in the footsteps
of Jacob, King Saul, Miriam, Hannah, and Naomi,
who lived with dark moods,
hopelessness,
isolation,
and terror,
but survived and led our people.
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Just as our father Jacob spent the night
wrestling with an angel and prevailed,
may I be granted the endurance
to wrestle with pain and prevail,
night upon night.
Grant me the faith to know
that though, like Jacob,
I may be wounded,
shaped,
and renamed by this struggle,
still I will live on
to continue an ever-unfolding,
unpredictable path toward healing.
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May I not be alone on this path
but accompanied by family in all its forms,
friends,
caregivers,
ancestors,
and the Divine Presence.
Surround me with loving-kindness, grace, and companionship,
and spread over me a sukkat shalom, a shelter of peace and wholeness.
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“A Prayer of Healing for Mental Illness” was written by Rabbi Elliot Kukla for the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center and was first published in Where Healing Resides (CCAR 2013), p. 91.
Contributor: Elliot Kukla
Co-authors:
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Name: Elliot Kukla
Bio: Rabbi Elliot Kukla (he/they) is a rabbi, chaplain, author, artist, and activist. Elliot has been tending to the spiritual needs of grief, dying, and becoming (more) ill or disabled since 2007 and he has been engaged in justice work since 1996. He is currently faculty at Svara: A traditionally radical yeshiva where he is also the founder and director of the Communal Loss and Adaptation Project (CLAP). He was a rabbi at the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center from 2008 to 2021 where he co-directed Kol Hanshama, the multiple award-winning volunteer spiritual care hospice program. Elliot’s essays on disability and spirituality have been featured numerous times in the New York Times, as well as many other anthologies and magazines. In 2006, he was the first openly transgender rabbi to be ordained by a mainstream denomination (the Reform seminary, Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles) and in 2007 he trained as a chaplain at UCSF medical center. He currently lives on Oholone Land (Oakland, California) with his partner, their kid, queer chosen family, two Boston Terriers, and a cat named Turkey.
Website: https://elliotkukla.com
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/elliot-kukla
Featured Image:
Title: Francis_Jukes_-_The_Essex_East_Indiaman_in_the_Morning_after_the_Storm_with_Her_Signal_of_Distress_to_a_Ship_in_Sight_-_B1978.43.276_-_Yale_Center_for_British_Art
Caption: The Essex East Indiaman in the Morning after the Storm with Her Signal of Distress to a Ship in Sight by Francis Jukes (1785) in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art (B1978.43.276)
