Prayer for Release of the Hostages, Surcease from the Bombs — by Rabbi Victor Reinstein (2024)
Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=57101
open_content_license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license Date: 2024-06-27
Last Updated: 2025-03-27
Categories: War
Tags: 2023-2024 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Excerpt: A prayerful expression of an essay written by the author "Gam Zu v'Gam Zu, Weeping with all who Grieve," published in the online Reconstructionist journal, Evolve. . . .
Content:
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B’rikh Raḥmanah Malka d’alma,
Blessed are you, Compassionate One, Sovereign of all worlds,
whose embrace encompasses all.
Help us to find our way
in this shattering time.
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Open our hearts
to hold and to weep with all who grieve,
gam zu v’gam zu, this and also this,
learning to hold diverse realities
as part of a greater whole.
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Let not grief become a source of revenge,
not for Israelis or Jews joined in common bond,
holding the pain and horror of October 7th;
and not for Palestinians, Muslims and Christians near and far,
holding the pain and horror of Gaza’s suffering ever since.
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May the bombs stop falling and the hostages return from the agony of their captivity,
borders opened for delivery of food and life-saving aid,
broken hearts and broken people
joined across the divides of our own making.
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Give us the courage to hope,
to turn from the ways of hate to the ways of love,
seeing through tears your image in each one.
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With plowshares from swords newly fashioned,
may we learn to till the trauma strewn fields of each people’s pain
until flowers bloom.
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Help us to turn away from war and its futility
that we might yet bring our peoples near to each other
and to you, Compassionate One,
and from out of the shattering
to build together peace, shalom, salaam….
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This is a prayerful expression of an essay I wrote a few months ago called “Gam Zu v’Gam Zu, Weeping with all who Grieve,” published in the online journal, Evolve.
Contributor: Victor Reinstein
Co-authors:
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Name: Victor Reinstein
Bio: Rabbi Victor Reinstein (b. 1950) originally from Boston is a Conservative rabbi in the United States. In 2005, with his wife Mieke, he co-founded Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, an egalitarian shtibl committed to traditional Jewish practice and progressive social and political values. Before then he was the school rabbi and a teacher at the Solomon Schechter Day School in Newton, MA. From 1982-1998. he served as the rabbi of Canada’s oldest synagogue, Congregation Emanu-El in Victoria, British Columbia. Rabbi Reinstein was the first director of the United Synagogue’s Keruv/Outreach program to interfaith families. Blessed to make yet another life and career transition, he spends his days engaged in writing, teaching, and communal work. Learning of life in caring for the dead, he is an active member of the Community Ḥevra Ḳadisha of Greater Boston. Committed to interfaith dialogue, he has been particularly involved in building bridges between Jews and Muslims. Engaging Torah as a sourcebook for nonviolence by which to challenge and transform violence in the text and in our lives, he seeks at the core of his work to help fulfill God’s hope for a world of justice and peace.
Website:
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/victor-reinstein
Featured Image:
Title: Field of Dreams (Marilyn Peddle, CC BY)
Caption: "Field of Dreams" (credit: Marilyn Peddle, license: CC BY)