Prayer of the Guest Chaplain of the U.S. Senate: Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl on 29 November 2012

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Date: 2018-11-24

Last Updated: 2025-02-18

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

Tags: 112th Congress, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Prayers of Guest Chaplains, productive confrontation, U.S. Senate, תחינות teḥinot

Excerpt: The Opening Prayer given in the U.S. Senate on 29 November 2012. . . .

Content:

Guest Chaplain: Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, senior rabbi of Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto, Canada
Date of Prayer: 11/29/2012

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	God of us all, we assemble before You in humility, recalling both triumph and defeat, summer drought, autumn hurricane, and the cooperative resilience of our Nation. In this season after elections and before the new Congress, we ask that You give these Senators and our government the wisdom to avoid the exclusions of either/or and to embrace the blessings of both/and.
	Rather than fear falling off a cliff, help our leaders to learn to chimney. In climbing, chimneying requires pushing off one side of a mountain cleft and then the other to advance higher. The resistance of each face of the rock contributes to the ascent.
	Help these leaders to appreciate individual initiative and care for the distressed, to value competition and find a path for cooperation, to be mindful of human liberty and be grateful for mutual help, to recognize the occasional need for force and to forcefully pursue peace. Enable them to chimney up the cleft of our differences, to reclaim fiscal integrity and maintain social concern, to be exemplars of responsibility and reasonableness, so that all Americans may respect and rejoice in their leadership of this great country.
אָמֵן׃	Amen.

Source(s)

112th Congress, 2nd Session. Congressional Record, Issue: Vol. 158, No. 151 — Daily Edition (November 29, 2012)

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: Baruch Frydman-Kohl
Bio: Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl is the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Senior Rabbi of Beth Tzedec Congregation, the largest synagogue community in Canada. The focus of his rabbinate has been a commitment to family education, life-long learning and care for the housebound, hospitalized and homeless. Rav Baruch initiated the development of a "synaplex" of innovative ritual and educational opportunities to encourage more participation in synagogue life. Beyond the synagogue, Rav Baruch is the past president of the Toronto Board of Rabbis (2012 to 2015) and vice-chair of the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus. As president, he helped to organize the 2011 Path of Abraham mission to bring Jews, Christians and Muslims to the Holy Land to explore the challenges of three religions, two nations and one land. He was featured in the documentaries “The Secret of San Nicandro” for CBC and “Amazing Communities” for Israel television. Rav Baruch offered a prayer to open a session of the United States Senate. Rav Baruch serves on the Board of UJA Federation of Toronto and is a member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of Jewish Federations of North America. He is a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, has served on its international Executive Committee, chaired its international convention and is a past president of two of its regions. In 2016, his service to the community was recognized by UJA Federation with the Gordy Wolfe Award for Jewish Communal Professional Leadership. Rav Baruch was awarded a Coolidge Fellowship to pursue research in an inter-faith community at the Episcopal Divinity School at Harvard University, received a doctorate in Jewish Philosophy from the Jewish Theological Seminary and is a Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem. Rabbi Frydman-Kohl is the author of scholarly articles in the area of Jewish philosophy and mysticism.
Website: https://www.beth-tzedec.org/page/our-clergy/a/display/s/1/hc/1/item/6
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/baruch-frydman-kohl

Featured Image:

Title: Flag_of_the_United_States_Senate.svg
Caption: Flag of the United States Senate