Tag Archive for "COVID-19"

Posts Tagged ‘COVID-19’

A Covid Yizkor Prayer

Posted on: August 22nd, 2021 by Alden

This is a new Yizkor prayer to be read on behalf of the entire community for those who perished due to Covid-19. The core paragraph is patterned after the traditional El Malei Rachamim. It’s based on a prayer I wrote when the U.S. Covid death toll hit 100,000. Click on the link below to download a PDF of this prayer for your personal use. Contact me at alden@tobendlight.com if you’d like to make multiple copies for communal use. See also: “Pervasive Peace,” a musical blessing for the New Year in the era of Covid, as well as “These Vows: A Covid Kol Nidre.”

A Covid Yizkor Prayer

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A Covid Yizkor Prayer
God of consolation,
Surely you count in heaven,
Just as we count here on earth,
In shock and in sorrow,
The souls sent back to You,
One-by-one,
The dead from the Covid pandemic,
As the ones became tens,
The tens became hundreds,
The hundreds became thousands,
Then hundred-thousands,
And now millions upon millions.
Each soul, a heartbreak,
Each soul, a life denied.

,אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים, שׁוֹכֵן בַּמְּרוֹמִים
,הַמְצֵא מְנוּחָה נְכוֹנָה עַל כַּנְפֵי הַשְּׁכִינָה
,בְּמַעֲלוֹת קְדוֹשִׁים וּטְהוֹרִים כְּזוֹהַר הָרָקִיעַ מַזְהִירִים
.לְכָל הַנְּשָׁמוֹת שֶׁנִּסְפּוּ בְּמַגֵּפַת הַקוֹבִיד

El malei rachamim, shochayn bam’romim,
Ham-tzay m’nucha n’chona al kanfay Hash’china,
B’maalot k’doshim uthorim k’zohar harakia mazhirim,
L’kol haneshamot sheneisfu b’mageifat ha’Covid.

God, full of mercy, who dwells on high,
Provide a sure rest on the wings of the Divine Presence,
Among the holy, pure and glorious, who shine like the sky,
To the souls of all who died in the Covid pandemic.

God of wisdom,
We pray for the souls of those taken too soon,
Those who were vulnerable and unprotected,
Those who were sacred and forsaken,
Those who died on ventilators,
Whose funerals were lonely,
Who didn’t need to die,
And those who died alone,

God of healing,
Put an end to this pandemic,
And all illness and disease.
Bless those who stand in service to humanity.
Bless those who grieve.
Bless the dead,
So that their souls are bound up in the bond of life eternal.
And grant those still afflicted
With disease or trauma
A completed and lasting healing,
One-by-one,
Until suffering ceases,
And we can stop counting the dead,
In heaven
And on earth.

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Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul , This Grateful Heart, and This Precious Life. Here’s a link to my ELItalk, “Falling in Love with Prayer..” 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.

Vagabond Prayers: A Covid Ushpizin (of sorts)

Posted on: September 29th, 2020 by Alden

A Covid-inspired meditation, an Ushpizin (of sorts) for these times when the idea of visitors — and blessings from heaven — may seem distant. Ushpizin is Aramaic for “guests.” It refers to the supernal guests invited to dwell in our sukkot, a ritual that has expanded beyond inviting the traditional ushpizin, the seven patriarchs, prophets, and kings of old. We invite the ushpizot, seven women named by the Talmud as prophets. Some include all of the matriarchs. Others invite inspirational individuals from throughout the ages to visit our sukkot. Here’s a Covid-inspired not-exactly Ushpizin meditation.

Vagabond Prayers
Quiet secrets
Whisper
In the vagabond prayers
Of my heart.
The call of the hills,
The echo in the valley,
Summon these prayers to wander
Unmoved by the glory of heaven,
Unmoved by the promise of eternity.
They ramble, nomadic,
Vagrant blessings of light
Meant only
For earth.

And if you invite them
To dwell briefly
In the tabernacle of your life,
They will linger
For a moment
To whisper
Your name.

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Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and my two CCAR Press books: This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings 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 by Alden Solovy

These Vows – A Covid Kol Nidre

Posted on: September 27th, 2020 by Alden

Finished in the hours before Yom Kippur, 5781…
And a year has come and gone…
Now, Yom Kippur 5782…

These Vows – A Covid Kol Nidre
You have been summoned
To wander,
In search of God,
In a Yom Kippur wilderness
Of heartbreak and isolation,
Of fire and ash,
Of lurking plague,
Of fears unknown,
Of fears too real,
Where the shofar blast
Is a faint echo,
And the still small voice
Waits in stillness.

This vow, this oath,
This pledge, this duty,
This commitment, this honor,
To love and seek G-d,
To love and support our people,
We will never
Rescind or revoke,
Revise or renege,
Abandon or discard,
Not last year,
Not this year,
Not next year,
Never.

אוֹר זרע לצדיק, ולישרי-לב שמחה.
Or zarua latzadik. ul’yishrei leiv simchah.
Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.

Return to us, Holy One,
As we return to You.
How I wish to sing in the key of Lamentations.
How I wish to demand an accounting from You.
Without an answer,
We will still sing tonight in the key of El Rachum,
The key of the God of Mercy,
When we defiantly declare…

ברוך אתה ה’ אלקינו מלך העולם
שהחינו וקימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה.
Baruch ata adonai elohenu melech ha olam,
shehecheyanu, v’kiyimanu, v’higiyanu laz’man hazeh.
Blessed are You Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe
Who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to reach this day.

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Postscript: My other prayers for Yom Kippur can be found here.

Photo Source: Wikipedia

Wildly Unimaginable Blessings: A Prayer for 5781

Posted on: September 17th, 2020 by Alden

This new Rosh Hashanah prayer — written this morning — is a response to Covid-19. Since March, since the reality of pandemic and plague struck our worlds, wildly unimaginable shifts have occurred in the way we live and, perhaps, the way we see life. One lesson of these unimaginable losses and changes is the possibility that there might also be wildly unimaginable blessings. The idea for this prayer came as I signed an email to musician Josh Nelson. I concluded: “For a year of wildly unimaginable blessings. Your friend, Alden.” So the idea for this prayer was born. This prayer, followed by my 5780 prayer “Pervasive Peace,” would make a lovely kavanah for the New Year.

Wildly Unimaginable Blessings
Let us dream
Wildly unimaginable blessings…
Blessings so unexpected,
Blessings so beyond our hopes for this world,
Blessings so unbelievable in this era,
That their very existence
Uplifts our vision of creation,
Our relationships to each other,
And our yearning for life itself.

Let us dream
Wildly unimaginable blessings…
A complete healing of mind, body, and spirit,
A complete healing for all,
The end of suffering and strife,
The end of plague and disease,
When kindness flows from the river of love,
When goodness flows from the river of grace,
Awakened in the spirit of all beings,
When G-d’s light,
Radiating holiness,
Is seen by everyone.

Let us pray —
With all our hearts —
For wildly unimaginable blessings,
So that G-d will hear the call
To open the gates of the Garden,
Seeing that we haven’t waited,
That we’ve already begun to repair the world,
In testimony to our faith in life,
Our faith in each other,
And our faith in the Holy One,
Blessed be G-d’s Name.

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Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons

One-by-One: A Prayer as the COVID Death Toll Mounts

Posted on: May 27th, 2020 by Alden

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is approaching 100,000, as the world-wide death toll surpasses 350,000. This prayer was written at the request of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in an effort to remember and mourn those lost hearts and souls as the U.S. marks this sad milestone.

ADDENDUM: As of February 17, 2021, the U.S. death toll surpassed 500,000 and total deaths world-wide are nearing 2.5 million people.

One-by-One: A Prayer as the COVID Death Toll Mounts
God of consolation,
Surely you count in heaven,
Just as we count here on earth,
In shock and in sorrow,
The souls sent back to You,
One-by-one,
The dead from the COVID pandemic,
As the ones become tens,
The tens become hundreds,
The hundreds become thousands,
The thousands become ten-thousands
And then hundred-thousands,
Each soul, a heartbreak,
Each soul, a life denied.

God of wisdom,
Surely in the halls of divine justice
You are assembling the courts,
Calling witnesses to testify,
To proclaim
The compassion of some
And the callousness of others
As we’ve struggled to cope.
The souls taken too soon,
Whose funerals were lonely,
Who didn’t need to die,
Who died alone,
Will tell their stories
When You judge
Our triumphs
And our failures
In these hours of need.

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Postscript: My other coronavirus prayers are: “Sheltering in Place,” “On the Front Lines of the Pandemic,” “Healing from Coronavirus“, “Coronavirus: A Prayer for Medical Scientists” and “Traveler’s Prayer in a Time of Pandemic.”

Photo Source: The New York Times, May 24, 2020

Healing from Coronavirus: Hebrew and English

Posted on: April 1st, 2020 by Alden

Here’s a Hebrew version of my prayer “Healing from Coronavirus,” with a revised English version so that the two match. Alex Griffel, a student at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies when I am also a student and Liturgist-in-Residence, translated the text, after he and I made some adaptations. Faculty member Rabbi Howard Markose who teachesBiblical Hebrew Grammar reviewed the draft. There were technical issues with the Hebrew, with new challenges appearing with each reread of the text. This is the result. Note: As a writing coach I have two open spots for new clients. Contact me at: alden@tobendlight.com.

Healing from Coronavirus

יהי רצון מלפניך
ה’ אלוקינו ואלוקי אבותינו ואמותינו
,שתשלח אור בריאות ורווחה לכל מי שנחשף לקורונה
,מי שלקה במחלת הקורונה
.וכל מי שילקה בה בעתיד – חס ושלום
.תברך אותם, תגן עליהם ,ותביא אותם במהירות להתאוששות שלמה
.תשלח להם רפואת הנפש ,רפואת הגוף ורפואת הנשמה
ונאמר, אמן

May it be Your will,
G-d of our fathers and mothers
That You cast the light of health and well-being
On those who’ve been exposed to coronavirus,
Those who have contracted the disease,
And those who contract the disease in the future, G-d forbid.
Bless them, protect them and bring them speedily to full recovery.
Send them
Healing of soul,
Healing of body,
And healing of spirit.
And let us say, Amen

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New! A PDF version of Haggadah Companion: Meditations and Readings. Get a $1.00 off with the coupon code “freedom” (without quotes) at checkout. The PDF edition is in memory of my wife Ami z”l, who died before Passover 11 years ago. Here’s a link.

The Blessing of Faces: A Zoom Prayer

Posted on: March 30th, 2020 by Alden

This prayer is inspired by the array of faces of men I love on a Zoom call. It is, in fact, a poetic version of the blessing that Steve Stanley — a ritual elder in the ManKind Project — gave to the men of ManKind Project Israel on our first virtual Community Tent, a meeting of all MKP Israel men. The idea is his; the words are (mostly) mine. Use this prayer to open Zoom calls. This is my second prayer inspired by the new reality of living with coronavirus. The first is called “Sheltering in Place.” Links to my health-related coronavirus prayers are below.

The Blessing of Faces
So many beautiful faces,
So many radiant souls,
Shining forth
Into our hearts.

Look at those eyes.
The smiles.
The hopes. The fears.
The yearning. The questioning.
The compassion.
The love.

Take it in.
Take it all in.
The tenderness.
The humanity.
The blessing of faces
Arrayed before you.
The blessing of faces,
Given,
And received.

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Photo Source: Zoom Help Center

Sheltering in Place

Posted on: March 29th, 2020 by Alden

In this strange and uncertain new era of COVID-19, here’s a prayer of gratitude and hope for our time sheltering in place. May we all know health and safety.

Sheltering in Place
May it be Your will,
G-d of our fathers and mothers,
That our sheltering in place
Be for health and healing,
Longevity and life,
Sustenance, renewal and love.
Let our best selves shine forth
In these moments of uncertainty,
These moments of unfamiliar distances,
These moments that may yield stress or conflict,
Confusion or despair.
Let peace arise inside us.
Let kindness flow between us.
Let deliverance rise up from heaven,
And let health and goodwill radiate throughout the world
As a river of blessings.

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Postscript: My other coronavirus prayers are: “On the Front Lines of the Pandemic,” “Healing from Coronavirus“, “Coronavirus: A Prayer for Medical Scientists” and “Traveler’s Prayer in a Time of Pandemic.”

On the Front Lines of the Pandemic

Posted on: March 25th, 2020 by Alden

A prayer for those on the front lines of the pandemic. It begins with the medical professionals putting themselves in harm’s way. The second stanza broadens the view of what’s included as ‘the front lines.’ It ends with two universal prayers. For a focused prayer for medical professionals, skip the second paragraph, although I believe this crisis calls for the inclusive view. Here are three related prayers: “Healing from Coronavirus“, “Coronavirus: A Prayer for Medical Scientists” and “Traveler’s Prayer in a Time of Pandemic.” Note: As a writing coach I have two open spots for new clients. Contact me at: alden@tobendlight.com.

On the Front Lines of the Pandemic

Source of mercy,
Watch over the medical professionals –
Doctors, nurses and all health care workers –
On the front lines of the pandemic
As they tend to the sick,
Putting themselves in harm’s way
To care for us.
Protect them from illness.
Shield them from trauma.
Guard them from all harm.
Bless their limbs with strength,
Their eyes with courage,
Their hands with gentleness,
For they are a source of hope and love.
May their deeds
Find favor in heaven
And bring healing on earth.

Rock of love,
Watch over those who are caring for the vulnerable,
The disabled, infirm, chronically-ill and elder populations,
And those who are called upon to serve the public in new ways,
All who cannot protect themselves with self-isolation,
Among them police, fire, ambulance and sanitation,
As well as those providing for our basic needs,
Workers in grocery stores, pharmacies and other essential services,
All who are doing Your work with love,
Putting themselves at additional risk
In service to humankind.

G-d of healing,
Extend your tabernacle of health and peace
To all in need.
Bring a speedy end to this pandemic,
And all disease and suffering,
So that we may know
Your compassion and Your grace.

Let deliverance rise up from heaven,
Let joy and celebration resound
From the four corners of the earth,
And may peace,
At long last,
Reign on earth.

Postscript: Thanks to Michael Jarvis, a student cantor at HUC-JIR, who suggested the idea for this prayer. Here are prayers “For Nurses” and “For Physicians.” Both appear in my book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and Healing.

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Pervasive Peace

Posted on: March 13th, 2020 by Alden

In these difficult times, this one line captures my simplest yet deepest prayer for us all. With so much healing needed, our prayers must rattle the gates of heaven. But sometimes, one line, recited from the heart, is enough.

Pervasive Peace

May it be Your will, G-d of our fathers and mothers,
That the year ahead brings a pervasive and complete peace
On all inhabitants of the earth,
Beyond all dreams of humanity.

,יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶֽיךָ, אֱלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ וְאִמּוֹתֵֽינוּ
שֶׁהַשָּׁנָה הַבָּאָה תָּבִיא שָׁלוֹם מֻחְלָט וְשָׁלֵם
,עַל כָּל־יוֹשְׁבֵי תֵבֵל
.מֵעֵֽבֶר לְכָל־חֲלֹמוֹת־הָאֱנוֹשׁוּת

Y’hi ratzon mil’fanecha, Elohei avoteinu v’imoteinu,
Shehashanah haba-ah tavi shalom muchlat v’shaleim
Al kol yosh’vei teiveil,
Mei-ever l’chol chalomot ha-enoshut.

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Postscript: I originally wrote this as a prayer for 5780, but I’m reposting it now in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

Photo by Alden Solovy

Posts Tagged ‘COVID-19’

A Covid Yizkor Prayer

A Covid Yizkor Prayer

Vagabond Prayers: A Covid Ushpizin (of sorts)

These Vows – A Covid Kol Nidre

Wildly Unimaginable Blessings: A Prayer for 5781

One-by-One: A Prayer as the COVID Death Toll Mounts

Healing from Coronavirus: Hebrew and English

The Blessing of Faces: A Zoom Prayer

Sheltering in Place

On the Front Lines of the Pandemic

Pervasive Peace

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

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