A Prayer from a Traumatized Jewish Heart, by Rabbi Menachem Creditor (10 October 2023)
Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=52984
open_content_license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license Date: 2023-10-10
Last Updated: 2025-02-18
Categories: Conflicts over Sovereignty and Dispossession, Terror, War
Tags: 2023-2024 Israel–Hamas war, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Excerpt: "A Prayer from a Traumatized Jewish Heart" was written by Rabbi Menachem Creditor and shared by the author via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook, 10 October 2023. . . .
Content:
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Oh, God
Our eyes, our eyes
Our hearts, our hearts
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Our children, our children
Our mothers, our mothers
Our elders, our parents
Our teachers, our grandchildren
Our warriors, our peacekeepers
Our very souls…
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….it is more than we can bear,
and it only gets worse
with every photo and every video.
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God, protect our children
from the images emblazoned now in our eyes and minds,
from the worst nightmare to ever befall the Jewish People.
Our enemy, the face of real evil,
seeks to destroy our family, body and soul.
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We must be like steel.
We must be like iron.
But we must never lose our warm and loving hearts along the way.
We will fight
until they are all erased
from under the face of the Heavens.
We have no choice.
They have shown us what they will do if we do not.
They’ve already perpetrated unfathomable evil.
And we will force the world to bear witness as we reel with pain.
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God, protect our protectors,
who are only children,
our children fighting for our future.
Shield them as they serve
as the sword we hate to need.
Hold our hearts.
Let us not become hard like stone
as we do what we must to save our lives.
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Amen.
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“A Prayer from a Traumatized Jewish Heart” was written by Rabbi Menachem Creditor and shared by the author via the Open Siddur Project discussion group on Facebook, 10 October 2023.
Contributor: Menachem Creditor
Co-authors:
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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
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Title: Videos Capture Two Partygoers Being Kidnapped by Militants at Music Festival as documented by HAMAS
Caption: Videos Capture Two Partygoers Being Kidnapped by Militants at Music Festival as documented by HAMAS