Blessings & Prayers
Here we share blessings and prayers written by our clergy and members:
Rabbi Lippmann:
Mi sheberakh:
Mi sheberakh avoteinu Avraham, Yithak, vYaakov, v'imoteinu Sarah, Rivka, Leah vRakhel, hu yivarekh et kol ha-holim ha-eleh. May the One who blessed our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel, also bless all these who have been named as well as others whose names we may not know. Grant their doctors, nurses, other caregivers great measures of wisdom and skill. Grant their loved ones, their family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, all of you who care for them at home or from afar, additional measures of hope and strength. And grant to them all a refua sh'leima, whether we understand that to be a complete recovery or a cessation of their pain.
Aliyah blessing for those who have a sense of something curled or condensed within, ready to expand at some propitious time:
You stand here with the sense of something condensed within. Let’s remember that Joseph met that man, that “ish,” who directed him toward his brothers and thus the rest of his life. When Jacob wrestled with an “ish,” he said he had struggled with a being divine and human. And so too, this “ish” Joseph encounters seems to be divine and human. I hope you are able to encounter someone who points you toward the future you are meant or hope to have. But if you never have that encounter, what you can have is the question the man asks Joseph: “What are you looking for?” My blessing for you is that you take that question in so that it becomes your own, and keep asking it whether you encounter an “ish” or not. “What are you looking for?”
Children's Learning Program Parents' Blessings
Trisha Arlin
For those who are mourning a loss:
Baruch Atah HaMakom, Blessed Place, Where I Live No Matter Where I Live, give me sanctuary to grieve and the strength to stop, and the knowledge of when it is time to do both.
For the new year:
Blessed One-ness, Breath of Everything, we are not alone on this journey. Walk with us as we cross each bridge to a new year and yet another beginning.
Adam Fredericks
For creativity
I bless You, God, Eternal Source of All,
Who sanctifies this time for creative play,
The journey starts: a river headed where?
The shore attracts — familiar, level, safe.
Ahead, the current churns and rages fierce:
The terrifying falls of doubt and fear,
Then o'er I go, the water’s deep and wild.
My breath, it’s gone; I’m soaked, my hair — Who cares!
Awake, my spirit thrills (this moment, Yes!)
To frolic in divine creative streams.
Susan Hamovitch
On entering a voting booth:
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha-olam, who has granted human beings the capacity to cooperate in the running of a peaceful society.
On signing a W-2 form/gaining remunerative work:
Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha-olam, who has granted me the ability to participate in this country's economy and thereby support myself .
On chopping down a tree, sustainably. (or other "natural resources," such as wind, sunlight, water, etc.):
Baruch atah Adonoi, Eloheinu melekh ha-olam, who has given us this wood so that we can sustain ourselves.
Trisha Arlin:
- Kesher v'Gesher, for 5772/2011 High Holydays
- A Prayer for Having and Not Having, a poem for Yom Kippur 5770
- Yom Kippur Havdallah, 5771
- A Shabbat Motzi, In Honor of the Ordinations of Cantor Lisa B. Segal & Rabbi Molly Kane, May 2011
Adam Fredericks:
David Hodgson:
Tehilla Wise
