Closing Prayer to the Home Service for the Festival of Passover, by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy (1896)

Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=62233

Date: 2025-06-26

Last Updated: 2025-06-28

Categories: Nirtsah

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, particularism and universalism

Excerpt: This is the closing prayer by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy to his Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover (1896), reprinted in subsequent editions. The prayer threads the needle between the particularly Jewish communal focus of Passover and the universalist themes that animated Levy's Liberal Jewish mission. . . .

Content:

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	READER.
	Almighty God! We have come to Thee this night with the burden of our hopes and joys. We have laid upon the altar of our faith an act of devotion that cannot enrich Thee, but which may make us the wealthier and the happier. We have rehearsed what our fathers have done, not in a spirit of boastfulness and vainglory, but that we may become strengthened by their example, that we learn todo what they have done. As they went through the world preaching the gospel of liberty and love so shall we. As they remained true and steadfast so shall we, with Thy help, O God.
	We thank Thee for an ancestry that we may pattern after. May we resolve to imitate our sires. May we devote our life to the study of Thy word, given to us in Nature and in the Holy Books of men.
	May we resolve to fulfil the law of love, to cheer the sorrowing, to sustain the falling, to help the poor and suffering, to plead the cause of the widow and the orphan, to inveigh against all intolerance and bigotry and to become the champions of liberty.
	May we feel that the story of liberty is not complete until the minds of men are free: from ignorance and superstition, from error and blind belief. May we remove frem our hearts the leaven of sin and unbelief, and may our purified souls worship Thee alone.
	We renew to-night the spiritual covenant of the Passover and we shall toil and labor for every cause that may bring about the universal Passover, when all men shall be tree, when all men shall be happy, when all men shall pass over into the promised land of knowledge and happiness, of truth and the fear of God.
	We thank Thee for the hope that the spring season teaches us that there is no death. May we learn to profit by this lesson. May we employ our days on earth wisely, devoting ourselves to all causes that tend to better the conditions of our fellow-men. Loving one another, aiding one another, and trusting faithfully in Thee, may we peacefully spend our allotted days on earth and look forward fearlessly to the eternal beyond. May we live so that we shall be loved living and regretted dead. May our life here ensure for us blessed immortality, and when the time shall come for us to return unto Thee, may we commit our spirit to Thy keeping, repeating the watch-word that has been our inspiration through all the various circumatances of life: “Hear, O Israel, the Eternal is our God; the Eternal is Unity.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) Amen.

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This is the closing prayer to the Passover seder by Rabbi J. Leonard Levy to his Haggadah or Home Service for the Festival of Passover (1896) pp. 43-44, reprinted with different page numbers in subsequent editions. The prayer threads the needle between the particularly Jewish communal focus of Passover and the universalist themes that animated Levy’s Liberal Jewish mission. –Aharon Varady

Source(s)

 

Contributor: Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Co-authors:

• 
  Name: Aharon N. Varady (transcription)
  Bio: Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)
  Website: https://aharon.varady.net
  Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/aharon-varady-transcription
• 
  Name: J. Leonard Levy
  Bio: Rabbi Joseph Leonard Levy (1865-1917), born in London, was a Liberal/Reform movement rabbi in the United Kingdom and the United States. He was educated at Jews' College and University College (B.A.), London, at Bristol University, England, and at Western University of Pennsylvania (D.D.). Rabbi Levy was rabbi of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation (1885-1889) and of Bnai Israel Congregation, Sacramento, California (1889-1893); associate rabbi of the Keneseth Israel Congregation, Philadelphia (1893-1901); and, since 1901, has been rabbi of the Rodeph Shalom congregation, Pittsburg. In 1898 he was elected chaplain of "Keegan's Brigade," with which he served through the Spanish-American war. Levy was the organizer of a number of charitable and religious societies among the Jews of Philadelphia. He is the author of a translation of the tractate Rosh haShanah of the Babylonian Talmud (Philadelphia, 1895). He published also The Greater Lights (1895); Home Service for the Passover (1896); The Nineteenth Century (1901); A Book of Prayer (Pittsburg, 1902); The Jew's Beliefs (1903); The Children's Service and Hymnal (1903); Text-Book of Religion and Ethics for Jewish Children (1903); Sabbath Reading (1904); and eight volumes of Sunday lectures. Levy is the editor of the Jewish Criterion, published at Pittsburg.
  Website: https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9892-levy-joseph-leonard
  Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/joseph-leonard-levy

Featured Image:

Title: Closing prayer [to the Passover seder] (J. Leonard Levy 1896) – cropped
Caption: Closing prayer [to the Passover seder] (J. Leonard Levy 1896) - cropped