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Maoz Tzur for Sydney

Posted on: December 14th, 2025 by Alden

As Jews around the world prepare to bring in the light of Chanukah, we are rocked by the terror attack against the Jewish community of Sydney. Seven years ago, the shloshim mourning period after the Tree of Life massacre fell during Chanukah. I then wrote “Ma’oz Tzur for Pittsburgh,” which I’ve now adapted for the Jews of Sydney. Ma’oz Tzur – literally “Fortress Rock” – is a Chanukah acrostic written in the 13^th century. This song is traditionally sung each night after lighting Chanukah candles. In writing this, I studied five translations (see footnote).

Ma’oz Tzur for Sydney
מָעוֹז צוּר יְשׁוּעָתִי
Ma’oz Tzur Yeshu’ati
Rock of Ages,
Fortress of Redemption,
Rock of Salvation,
Refuge and Shelter,

לְךָ נָאֶה לְשַׁבֵּחַ
Lekha na’eh leshabe’ach
It is a delight,
Lovely and fine,
To sing Your praises.

תִּכּוֹן בֵּית תְּפִלָּתִי
Tikon beit tefilati
Restore my house and heart of prayer,
That has seen violence and hate,
Bloodshed and death.
It is firm and established,
Now and forever.

וְשָׁם תּוֹדָה נְזַבֵּחַ
Vesham toda nezabe’ah
There, and everywhere, we will offer thanksgiving,
In the name of our people,
An Or l’Simcha,
A light for joy,

לְעֵת תָּכִין מַטְבֵּחַ
Le’et takhin matbe’ach
When by Your will
All bloodshed ends,
The time when You eliminate
All slaughter.

מִצָּר הַמְנַבֵּחַ
Mi’tzor hamnabe’ach
The furious, they assail us,
Oppressors with hatred,
But Your arm avails us,

אָז אֶגְמוֹר בְּשִׁיר מִזְמוֹר
Az egmor beshir mizmor
So with joyous song,
Yet still in mourning,
With a heavy heart,
Singing in music,
Even on the day of terror,
In poetry and psalms,
A call out

חֲנֻכַּת הַמִּזְבֵּחַ
Chanukat hamizbe’ach
For the dedication of Your house,
Rededicating ourselves to Your service,
Rededicating ourselves to each other,
And to your sanctuary,
Every moment becoming an altar of Your praises,
Where our strength will not fail us.

[Sing Ma’oz Tzur]

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Postscript: Ma’oz Tzur was written by an unknown poet whose name is spelled out as Mordechai by the first letters of the first five verses. The first three letters of the sixth and final stanza spell out ‘chazak,’ or ‘strength’ (Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, M. Nulman). I consulted these siddurim while writing: Mishkan T’fillah (U.S., Reform); Koren Aviv Siddur (Orthodox); Seder HaTeffilah (UK, Reform); Siddur Lev Chadash (UK, Liberal/Progressive); and Siddur Nehalel (Orthodox). The transliteration is modified from Wikipedia. Find the original “Ma’oz Tzur for Pittsburgh” here.

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: Instagram screen shot

Return Home To Yourself

Posted on: August 10th, 2025 by Alden

This is a new High Holy Day season meditative song on tshuva by my friend and musical collaborator David Franklin. David suggested taking selected phrases from two of my prayer poems, combining them into one song. I fell in love with his musical expression, especially the instrumental and nigun woven in, but felt that the words as originally written needed revision. We spent quite a while adjusting the words to my satisfaction, as well as selecting the Hebrew. Thanks to CCAR Press for their support of this project. Listen to the song by clicking on the triangle in the bar below. Click here to open a YouTube video of David singing this piece. Follow along with the words, beneath the download link. The sheet music PDF is our gift to you.

Return Home to Yourself Sheet Music PDF Download

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Return Home To Yourself
Quiet the mind to hear the Voice,
Quiet the heart to hear the Soul,
Quiet the self, make space for Ein Sof.

Shuvi shuv, shuvi shuv
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita

Return home
To yourself
Even if you have never been there,
If you feel like a stranger to yourself.

Shuvi shuv, shuvi shuv
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita

Surrender fear and despair to hope and adventure.
Remind us of who we are
And who we may become.

Shuvi shuv, shuvi shuv
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita
Lech l’cha v’shuv habieita

“Return Home to Yourself,” words by Alden Solovy, music by David Franklin, is based on excerpts from “These Barriers” by Alden Solovy from These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah © 2023, Central Conference of American Rabbis and “The Season of Return” by Alden Solovy from This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day © 2017, Central Conference of American Rabbis. Used by permission of the CCAR. All rights reserved.

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Please check out Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe and These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. For a taste of my teaching, see my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.”

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Our Story

Posted on: April 8th, 2025 by Alden

At the end of the Passover Seder, people around the world say that we have told the tale followed by ‘Next Year in Jerusalem.’ Few, if any, actually act on that aspiration. In one sense, it is the impossible dream. We all — even those of us who actually reside here — aspire to live in the heavenly Jerusalem, the fantastic, archetypical dream of Messianic wholeness and peace, with the word of God radiating into all of existence. And our story is far, far from completed. I offer this, then, as a new aspiration to add to the end of our Seders. It is, in part a response to October 7, in part a call to remember the long arc of our history. My suggestion: say this prayer-poem followed by ‘Next Year in Jerusalem.’

Our Story
Our story is not complete.
Oh no.
There will be more highs
And lows,
But the ending,
Oh my,
Will be tremendous.
This is faith.
Faith knows
That our story is not complete,
And the ending
Is beyond
All our hopes
For joy and wonder.

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Postscript: The research on the word that inspired this poem can be found in the book itself.

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We Wait, על הניסים, תשפ”ה, For the Miracles, 5785

Posted on: December 21st, 2024 by Alden

We traditionally say al hanisim on Hanukkah and Purim, an insertion into the Amidah and the birkat hamazon remembering and thanking God for the miracles that occurred in each season. Last Hanukkah, with war raging and hostages held by the hand of terror, unable to fully embrace this prayer, I worked with my friend Avital Ordan to adapt the Hebrew to include future miracles, adding my own text to create על הניסים, תשפ”ד, “For the Miracles, 5784”. A year later, I have rewritten the English text. Hard to believe a year has passed. And here we are…

We Wait, על הניסים, תשפ”ה, For the Miracles, 5785
O heart of yearning,
With gratitude for miracles
In the days of old,
We pray and wait
For new signs and wonders,
Miracles in our day,
As we defend our people and our land,
As we fight to free our hostages.

For all the miracles,
Seen and unseen,
Done and yet to be done,
We thank You.

O, that we might thank You once again,
That we might rejoice
With whole hearts,
With the captives freed,
With all wars, everywhere, ended.

,על הניסים ועל הפרקן ועל הגבורות ועל התשועות ועל המלחמות
הנסתרות והנגלות, שנעשו, שנעשות, שיעשו איתנו
.בכל עת ועת, בימים האלה ובזמן הזה

We thank You for the miracles, the redemption, the heroics, the blessings, and the victories,
Hidden and revealed, that You did, are doing, and will do for us,
In every age, in these days and at this season.

Al hanissim v’al hapurkan v’al hagvurot v’al hat’shuot v’al hamilhamot, hanistarot v’haniglot, she’nasu, she’naasot she’yi’asu eitanu b’col et va’et bayamim ha’eleh u’vazman hazeh.

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Postscript: Thank you to Avital Ordan for her collaboration in adapting the traditional Hebrew.

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For Bereaved Children, Revisted

Posted on: December 2nd, 2024 by Alden

This prayer is dear to me. I wrote it on behalf of my daughters 15 years ago as I witnessed them struggling to cope with the loss of their mother. My wife Ami z”l died after of traumatic brain injury, most likely suicide. As a prayer for healing, this prayer echoes the themes in the Mourner’s Kaddish, recalling G-d’s majesty and holiness. It appears in my book, Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe. Writing this prayer-poem cracked me open, and opened the well of my liturgical writing. I’m reposting it for all of the children who have lost their parents on and after October 7, 2023.

For Bereaved Children
Father of Jacob,
Mother of Rachel,
Source of awe and wonder,
Cradle and Shelter,
Our children are lost in tears,
Crushed in sorrow,
Erased in loneliness,
Bent and broken,
Their hopes, dust…
Their joys, cinders…
Their dreams, shadows.

You who comfort Zion and Israel,
Comfort our children in this moment of grievous loss,
And show them the path from darkness to light.
Renew their hope,
Rekindle their joy,
Spark their dreams,
So that they, too, will know Your healing Power,
Your salvation and grace,
Your loving kindness.
Hold them,
Lift them,
Carry them,
Until, refreshed by Your spirit,
They walk upright once again,
Toward holiness and love,
With charity and thanksgiving,
Humility and strength,
In awe and righteousness,
To sing Your praise.

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Postscript: This piece appears in Enter These Gates: Meditations for the Days of Awe from CCAR Press. It also appears in my first self-published book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and Healing.

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Photo by Alden Solovy

Yom HaShoah, תשפ’ד

Posted on: May 4th, 2024 by Alden

A Yom HaShoah prayer-poem for 5784, in the form of a vision, imagining how the souls of murdered in the Holocaust might respond to the souls of the murdered in the Hamas shock assault of October 7, 2023. The Holocaust victims in heaven purposefully misquote verses from four Psalms–Psalms 121 and 129-131–reframing them as questions, rather than asserting them as statements of faith.

Yom HaShoah, תשפ’ד
In the precincts of heaven,
The Six Million assemble,
Guiding the newly murdered
To the sacred courtyards,
While the defenders of Israel stand guard
On the ramparts and at the gates.
As they approach the inner courtyard,
The multitudes sing psalms,
Not as praise, as questions:

Does the Guardian of Israel
Slumber and sleep? (Ps 121)
Will You cut the bonds of the wicked? (Ps 129)
From the depths I call out;
Do You hear my voice? (Ps 130)
Shall we put our hope in You? (Ps 131)

In the courtyards of heaven
The Six Million assemble,
Bringing with them the
Newly murdered.
With their blood and tears
They entreat the Holy of Holies:
Free the hostages.
Protect Your people.
Save our land.
To the living they declare:
Remember.

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Postscript: See also “O Auschwitz, O Birkenau.”

Please check out These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah and my other CCAR Press volumes: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life, which can also be purchased as the Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. For a taste of my teaching, see my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.”

Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.

Elijah and Miriam: Two Poems for Passover 2024

Posted on: April 17th, 2024 by Alden

Here are two new prayer poems for Passover 2024 in the light of the October 7, 2023, invasion, massacre, and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel. The prayer poems challenge the traditions and metaphors that the prophet Elijah visits our Seders and the Miriam brings us healing waters.

Elijah is with the Hostages
Elijah,
The prophet who will announce salvation and peace,
Will not visit your Pesach Seder this year.
Don’t fill the cup. Don’t waste the wine.
The prophet is exhausted,
Pleading with the heavens for the hostages
Pleading with the heavens for the displaced,
The grieving and lost.

Find hope in your own hands,
In deeds of repairing the world
And acts of lovingkindness.

Elijah is not coming to your Seder.
The work of healing the world,
And bringing redemption,
He has left to us.

Miriam is with the Lost
Miriam,
The prophet who brings healing waters,
Will not visit your Pesach Seder this year.
She has taught you all you need to know
To bring balm and medicine into the world.
The prophet is exhausted,
Tending hearts in the heavens,
Comforting the dead,
The terrorized and the murdered.

Find hope in your own hands,
In deeds of repairing the world
And acts of lovingkindness.

Miriam is not coming to your Seder.
The work of healing the world,
And bringing redemption,
She has left to us.

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Photo Source: Kibbutz Nir Oz

Light from Beyond

Posted on: December 12th, 2023 by Alden

A Hanukkah poem about light, seeking hope in the darkness of war, terror, and hostages in captivity. The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies — where I am the Liturgist in Residence — invited me to write a prayer poem for Hanukkah as part of its series “Illuminating Chanukah: Artistic Reflections on Jewish Texts.” Each artist was asked to interpret a Hanukkah text. This poem is an interpretation of a teaching of the Sefat Emet “that each Hannukah candle draws from the or haganuz, the hidden light of creation.” For the full text, go to Sefaria.

Light from Beyond
When you look
With all of your heart
Into the flames
Dedicated to miracles,
You may glimpse
That special light
God created
On the first day of existence.

How comforting to know
That God’s holiness
And majesty
Still reach this world
Of war and terror.

How wonderful to feel
That God’s love
And blessings
Still shine
To warm our souls.

How glorious to see
That mysteries from heaven
Still wait in secret
To bring joy and light
To all of creation.

When you look
With all of your heart
Into the Hanukkah lights,
You will see
That miracles
Beyond our sight
Will one day bring joy and peace
Beyond our deepest yearning.

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Photo Source: NOAA

Al Hanism, 5784

Posted on: December 6th, 2023 by Alden

On Hanukkah it’s traditional to add Al Hanisim, “About the Miracles,” to the Amidah and the Grace after Meals. How do we praise God’s miracles in the aftermath of the shock assault, kidnappings, and wanton violence on Shabbat Simchat Torah? How do we say this prayer in the face of war? Here’s an adaptation of Al Hanisim for this difficult year. The adaptation of the traditional Hebrew — a collaboration with Avital Ordan — reflects the idea that some miracles happen in secret, known as nissim nistarim.

על הניסים, תשפ”ד

For all the miracles,
Seen and unseen,
Done and yet to be done,
We thank You.

God of miracles,
Ancient and new,
We do not wait for signs and wonders,
Defending our people and our land,
Fighting to free the hostages.

Perhaps the acts of survival
And moments of heroism
On that Black Shabbat,
Hint at God’s guiding hand
Hidden from our sight.
Let us pray for unseen miracles.

Perhaps the hostages
So far released,
Remind us of
God’s power to redeem.
Let us pray for miracles
For all to see
As in the days of old.

Woe to our hearts
That these miracles are incomplete,
That our soldiers still fight and die,
Kill and are killed,
For this land and this nation.

Woe to our hearts
That these miracles are unfinished,
That hostages still languish in captivity
As the pawns and trophies of heartless terror.

God of miracles,
Ancient and new,
We do not wait for signs and wonders.
We take this as our sacred task,
Defending our nation.
Still we yearn for Your mighty hand
And outstretched arm
To bring us blessings
Hidden or revealed.

על הניסים ועל הפרקן ועל הגבורות ועל התשועות ועל המלחמות הנסתרות והנגלות, שנעשו, שנעשות, שיעשו איתנו בכל עת ועת, בימים האלה ובזמן הזה

We thank You for the miracles, the redemption, the heroics, the blessings, and the victories hidden and revealed, that You did, are doing, and will do for us in every age, in these days and at this season.

Al hanissim v’al hapurkan v’al hagvurot v’al hat’shuot v’al hamilhamot hanistarot v’haniglot she’nasu, she’naasot she’yi’asu eitanu b’col et va’et bayamim ha’eleh u’vazman hazeh.

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Postscript: I learned about nissim nistarim at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies learning with Rabbi Michael Hattin. A version of Al Hanisim is also added to the Amidah and the Grace after Meals during Purim. Thanks to my friends Haim Watzman and Miriam Fine for their comments on earlier drafts.

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Photo Source: Alden Solovy

The Sound of Holiness

Posted on: September 14th, 2023 by Alden

What do we hear when we listen to the shofar? The sound of holiness? But what does that mean? Perhaps only a poet can answer. This piece appears in These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah from CCAR Press. The book presents seventy discussions of single words of Torah paired with a poetic Midrash. The research on the word t’ruah, which inspired this poem, can be found in the book.

The Sound of Holiness

When God, in creating,
Began to create,
Silence hovered over the face of the deep.
And God said,
T’kiah. T’ruah. T’kiah.

Holiness has a sound.
Part swoosh of blood in the veins,
Part hum from the edge of the universe,
Part stillness, part vibration,
Part life entering a newborn,
Part life leaving the deceased,
Part dissonance, part resonance,
A sound that can only be heard
With the heart.

When God, in creating,
Began to create,
God spoke in music,
Giving us the shofar
As a vessel to hold the divine voice,
And as an instrument
To summon awe and wonder,
So we might become,
In our own lives
And in the world,
T’kiah g’dolah.

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Postscript: These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah from CCAR presents seventy discussions of single words of Torah paired with a poetic Midrash based on each word. It was awarded a Silver Medal from the Independent Book Publishers in the category of inspirational/spiritual.

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Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category

Maoz Tzur for Sydney

Return Home To Yourself

Return Home to Yourself Sheet Music PDF Download

Our Story

We Wait, על הניסים, תשפ”ה, For the Miracles, 5785

For Bereaved Children, Revisted

Yom HaShoah, תשפ’ד

Elijah and Miriam: Two Poems for Passover 2024

Light from Beyond

Al Hanism, 5784

The Sound of Holiness

“Alden has become one of Reform Judaism’s master poet-liturgists…" - Religion News Service, Dec. 23, 2020

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**"Alden Solovy has become one of the most revered liturgists of the last decade…" - Jewish Post & Opinion, March 29, 2023**

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