This prayer celebrates diversity in Jewish life. It honors the work of Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue) by envisioning a time when we look beyond our differences – gender, skin color, age, sexuality, conversion, observance – to see one House of Israel in service to G-d, our people, and tikkun olam. I wrote it at the suggestion of Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder, Be’chol Lashon’s rabbi-in-residence. The organization used it at their family camp and posted it to their website. It appears in This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue)
We sing praises
Be’chol lashon,
In every tongue, in every voice,
In joy and sadness,
With music and with love.

We seek truth
Be’chol lashon,
In every tongue, with every breath,
In study and prayer,
With faith and with purpose.

We pursue justice
Be’chol lashon,
In every tongue, in every land,
In word and deed,
With strength and with courage.

We study Torah
Be’chol lashon,
In every tongue, in every generation,
In wonder and awe,
With zest and with zeal.

We are one people,
Present on Sinai,
Where G-d spoke Be’chol lashon,
In every tongue,
To every soul,
To every heart,
The whole House of Israel.

© 2021 CCAR Press from This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer

Postscript: Thanks again to Rabbi Ruth for suggesting this prayer and for her earlier invitation for me to write “A Liturgy for 9-11.”

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, and This Precious Life. 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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Photo Source: Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue)