Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives: Rabbi Israel Zoberman on 25 June 2014

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Date: 2018-09-03

Last Updated: 2025-02-18

Categories: 🇺🇸 United States of America, Opening Prayers for Legislative Bodies

Tags: 113th Congress, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, U.S. House of Representatives, תחינות teḥinot

Excerpt: The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. House of Representatives on 25 June 2014. . . .

Content:

Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Israel Zoberman, Founding Rabbi of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach, VA.
Sponsor: Rep. Scott Rigell, (R-VA)
Date of Prayer: 06/25/2014

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	Our one God of life’s blessings who brings us together to be one family, gloriously diverse and gratefully united through the divine commandments of loving kindness.
	In this House of Representatives’ august Chamber of the most flourishing democracy, we give thanks to the awesome author of an endangered universe for the essential twin gifts of freedom and responsibility. May You in Your infinite goodness ever guide our elected and appreciated lawmakers who are entrusted with the American people’s agenda and the safeguarding of our precious liberties.
	Mindful of living in our uncertain and unsettling world, let us reaffirm that the Creator’s divinity and human dignity are inseparable, that he who upholds but one human life upholds a unique, irreplaceable universe of purpose and meaning.
	May blemishes turn into blessings, hatred into love, violence into vision, and pain into promise in a global village at SHALOM’s peace at last.
אָמֵן׃	Amen.

Source(s)

113th Congress, 2nd Session. Congressional Record, Issue: Vol. 160, No. 100 — Daily Edition (June 25, 2014)

Link: https://chaplain.house.gov/chaplaincy/display_gc.html?id=2128

Contributor: the Congressional Record of the United States of America

Co-authors:

Name: the Congressional Record of the United States of America
Bio: The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Printing Office and issued when Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. Statutory authorization for the Congressional Record is found in Chapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Code. (wikipedia)
Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Record
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/united-states-congressional-record

Name: Israel Zoberman
Bio: Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is the Founding Rabbi of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Born in 1945 in Chu, Kazakhstan (USSR) to Polish Holocaust survivors who had met in Siberia, Rabbi Zoberman spent his early childhood in Poland, Austria and from 1947 to 1949 at Germany’s Wetzlar Displaced Persons Camp, American Zone. He grew up in Haifa, Israel and served in the IDF in the 1960s before emigrating to the United States in 1966. Rabbi Zoberman is the only rabbi to earn a doctorate in Pastoral Care and Counseling from Chicago’s McCormick Theological Seminary, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. A resident of Virginia since 1981, he served one year as Associate Rabbi at Ohef Sholom Temple in Norfolk before founding Congregation Beth Chaverim, the first Reform synagogue in Virginia Beach. In 1999, his alma mater, Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, awarded him the honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree.
Website: http://www.jewishnewsva.org/forty-years-a-rabbi-rabbi-israel-zoberman/
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/israel-zoberman

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Caption: Flag of the United States House of Representatives