Upon My Heart, a prayer-poem by Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=53372
open_content_license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license date_src_start: 2023-11-20 date_src_end: 2023-11-20 languages_meta: [{"name":"English","code":"eng","standard":"ISO 639-3"}] scripts_meta: [{"name":"Latin","code":"Latn","standard":"ISO 15924"}] Date: 2023-11-20
Last Updated: 2025-04-25
Categories: Slavery & Captivity, Terror
Tags: 2023-2024 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., captives, English vernacular prayer, North American Jewry, Prayers as poems
Excerpt: "Upon My Heart" was offered by Rabbi Menachem Creditor and shared via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on 20 November 2023. The added hashtag "#bringthemhomenow" helps to contextualize the prayer-poem, as written to express the yearning for the return of the captives taken hostage during the 7 October massacres by HAMA"S and its allies. . . .
Content:
| Contribute a translation |
Source (English) |
|
|
my heart keeps breaking
so I grip it and feel something hard
pressed up against it.
and I know. I’ve always known
but I know differently now.
I hear my family’s heartbeat
when I sleep and when I wake,
walking on the way and sitting at home.
|
|
|
Listen, Israel:
I place these words
between my eyes
and upon my heart.
|
“Upon My Heart” was offered by Rabbi Menachem Creditor and shared via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on 20 November 2023. The added hashtag “#bringthemhomenow” helps to contextualize the prayer-poem, as written to express the yearning for the return of the captives taken hostage during the 7 October massacres by HAMA”S and its allies.
Contributor: Menachem Creditor
Co-authors:
-
Name: Menachem Creditor
Bio: Rabbi Menachem Creditor serves as the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar in Residence at UJA-Federation New York and was the founder of Rabbis Against Gun Violence. A frequent speaker in communities and campuses around the United States and Israel with over 1 million views of his online videos and essays, he was named by Newsweek as one of the fifty most influential rabbis in America. His 22 books and 6 albums of original music include the global anthem "Olam Chesed Yibaneh" and the anthologies "When We Turned Within" and "None Shall Make Them Afraid." He has been involved in the leadership of American Jewish World Service, AIPAC, the Rabbinical Assembly, and the One America Movement, an organization dedicated to bringing together Americans of different faiths and opinions. He and his wife Neshama Carlebach live in New York, where they are raising their five children.
Website: http://rabbicreditor.blogspot.com
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/menachem-creditor
Featured Image:
Title: photographs of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas projected on the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, Nov. 6, 2023
Caption: otographs of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas militants are projected on the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, Monday, Nov. 6, 2023. The Islamic militant group killed 1,400 people and kidnapped 240 others in an unprecedented cross-border attack on Oct. 7, triggering a war that has raged for the past month. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)