This Shall Not Continue: A Prayer to End Gun Violence, by Rabbi Menachem Creditor (2023) • the Open Siddur Project

Tags: 2023 Bowdoin–Yarmouth shootings, 2023 Cleveland Texas shooting, 2023 Dadeville shooting, 2023 Half Moon Bay shootings, 2023 Louisville bank shooting, 2023 Michigan State University shooting, 2023 Monterey Park shooting, 2023 Nashville school shooting, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, United States

Excerpt: "This Shall Not Continue: A Prayer to End Gun Violence" by Rabbi Menachem Creditor was shared on 30 April 2023 via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook. . . .

Content:

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	Oh America, where the guns roam free, blood stained streets full of weeping parents and neighbors.
	Where Jeremiah’s prophetic tears for innocent lives cruelly torn from this world stream eternally down our cheeks, as weapons of death turn infinite profits plowshares turned into mass-produced swords and there is no comfort, only piercing grief.
	Why do we continue to do this to each other? Are we simply waiting our turn? Our children’s turns? There can be no peace in a city where innocent lives are so casually undone.
	Dear God, our despairing hearts have watched this endless hellish cycle for far too long. We, your children, are refractions of You. We know. We hear Your pain welling up from within our souls with each and every deadly bullet fired into Your Images, old and young, over and over and over and over.
	These tears on our cheeks, this pain in our souls, this rage in our minds, this sacred work for a terrified world work that shouldn’t be needed in this world of Your Imagining –
	– these are Your Tears on our cheeks, Your Pain in our souls, Your Rage in our minds, Your Compassion coursing through us.
	This is Your Work in our hands.
	And we declare: this shall not continue.
	We will, Holy One, build a world of Love, where children can safely go about their lives, where neighbors act like neighbors, where hope feels nearer, where You are seen by everyone in everyone.
	We will, through the tears, pain, and the rage, through the grief, the grief… the grief… and through the Love, Dear God, we will rescue this world.
	In the memories of all those we’ve lost and in the names of those to come, we will End Gun Violence.
	We ask of you, God: Be with us, as we do this sacred work. Bless the intentions of our hearts and bless the works of our hands. Heal us as we work to save Your children. Amen.

“This Shall Not Continue: A Prayer to End Gun Violence” by Rabbi Menachem Creditor was shared on 30 April 2023 via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook.