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This is a Passover appeal for each of us to work for social justice. It’s written in the voice of the admonishing prophet, exhorting us to leave the shelter of prayer and study to go to the streets in service of healing the world. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.
To the Streets
Have you been to the streets of our cities?
Have you seen the toothless madness
Of the poor, the homeless, the wretched and infirm?
Have you heard the broken voices
Of loneliness and loss, addiction and despair?
Of children abused in their homes.
Of youths who starve their bodies.
Of teens who cut their limbs.
Of adults who degrade each other.
Have you been to the battlefields and bomb shelters?
Have you witnessed the terror
Of the innocent and the gunman?
Have you heard the cries of fear and dread,
Of shock, alarm and panic?
Of soldiers blinded by war.
Of refugees abandoned to hate.
Of civilians shelled in the night.
Of prisoners tortured in the darkness.
Have you been to our factories and fields?
Have you seen the crushing labor
Of the illegals, the abused, the forgotten and the misused?
Have you heard the silent resignation
Of the indentured and the enslaved?
Of children forced to toil in sweat.
Of youth maimed by machines.
Of women raped in the mills.
Of men dead in the mines.
Come down,
You the wise and the righteous,
The learned and the wealthy.
Come down
From the temples of your wisdom,
From the sanctuaries of your prayer,
From the shelter of holiness and grace.
Our people have
Tasted the ashes of grief
The dust of loss,
The parching thirst of loneliness.
Our mothers and fathers
Have felt the whip, have been
Forced into labor, have been
Abused and condemned
To violation and violence.
Show me the words that will rescue the captive,
That will free the slave and heal the broken.
Show me the passages that will cure the sick
Feed the hungry and build them homes.
G-d calls us to service in the name of healing.
G-d calls us to action in the name of justice.
G-d calls us to repair the world in the name of holiness.
Only your hands and your strength can bless the world.
Bring your energy and dedication,
Your perseverance and action.
Come down!
Come down!
Bring your Midrash to the darkest allies,
And your Aggadah to the neglected countryside.
Bring your Musar to the clinics and the infirmaries,
And your Shulchan Aruch to the shelters and encampments.
Bring your love and devotion to building a better world.
G-d of Old,
Let Your Torah and Mitzvot
Guide us in loving service
To lives of action,
Heeding Your holy call to tikun olam.
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Here’s a list of my prayers for social justice divided into three categories: the forgotten, global village and personal responsibility. These prayers would make meaningful additions to a Passover seder, to special events such as Global Hunger Shabbat or to honor the memory of civil rights leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. To read a prayer, click on the title:
The Forgotten
Prayers for those who need our dedication and our voices:
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In every man there is a king, a beautiful, wise and powerful man who sees, heals and blesses. Sadly, sometimes we become tyrants, and sometimes we abdicate our duties. This is a meditation to remind myself and other men that all of us have a deep well of spiritual gold. We are men of honor and integrity. We are kings in service to our families, our loved ones, ourselves and the world. Kings in service to the Holy One, G-d of All Being. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.
I am a King: A Meditation for Men
I am a king.
Not the king.
A king.
Like all men,
Born with a seed of majesty,
A gift of the Sovereign of Heaven.
This gift is mine to nurture,
To love,
To hold sacred in service to G-d.
Rock of Truth,
Some men fear this gift,
Hate it, reject it,
Abdicating Your call to heal and create.
Some men grab this gift with zeal,
Tyrants abusing their power,
Destroying and devouring
Land and people.
Rock of Life,
Make me a king with a heart of gold,
Holding my life and the world
As precious gifts,
To honor and to cherish,
To build and to sustain.
Rock of Love,
Bless me so that I bless.
See me so that I see.
Hear me so that I hear.
Then, G-d of Old,
I will be Your servant on earth
All the days of my life.
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In my observation and judgment, many men have a common experience of not feeling good enough or worthy enough for the blessings we receive. I, too, have spent much of my life not feeling worthy. This is a prayer/poem for men about “being enough” and is part of a series of prayers for men including “My Work Remains,” “For the Lost” and “My Heart Knows What It Needs.” To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.
This Man
These hands are enough.
Enough to hold,
Enough to heal,
To fix, to plant, to tend.
These hands are enough.
These arms are enough.
Enough to embrace,
Enough to carry,
To lift, to dig, to work.
These arms are enough.
These eyes are enough.
Enough to see,
Enough to guide,
To smile, to laugh, to cry.
These eyes are enough.
This heart is enough.
Enough to love,
Enough to care,
To hope, to yearn, to break.
This heart is enough.
This man is enough.
Enough to heal,
Enough to honor,
To respect, to challenge, to live.
This man is enough.
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Here’s a prayer to be said in times of war. Of course, it’s a prayer for peace. It’s also a prayer for life, safety, hope and sound judgment from our national leaders. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below.
In Times of War
Ancient One,
G-d of compassion and mercy,
Our country is at war.
Our soldiers take arms,
Once more,
In pursuit of justice,
To defend and to protect life and liberty.
Grant our leaders with insight and strength
To guide our nation on a path of wisdom,
Using our power and might with courage, with caution and with care.
Keep our soldiers safe.
Return them swiftly in life and in health.
Bless the injured and wounded with Your healing hand
And their families with Your loving grace.
Grant a swift end to this and all human violence
So that fear and struggle give way to joy and hope.
Send compassion and protection
To refugees, widows and orphans
From every land and every conflict.
Guardian of Life,
Source and Shelter.
Bring harmony and tranquility
To all nations and all peoples
So that we may renew and rebuild,
In the name of compassion,
In the name of peace.
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Here’s another Passover prayer, written Erev Pesach 5771. It’s about breaking free from the chains that I’ve locked around myself. As such, the theme parallels “Egypt Inside,” although this piece follows a standard rhythmic structure, while “Egypt Inside” is a meditation set as prose poetry.
Breaking Bonds
To break the bonds of anger,
To live with gentle pride.
To break the bonds of shame,
To live with humble strength.
To break the bonds of envy,
To serve each other in joy.
To break the bonds of guilt,
To accept all G-d’s gifts.
To break the bonds of fear,
To love with fullness of heart.
To break the bonds of lust,
To love with fullness of being.
To break the bonds of loneliness,
To receive a hand of hope.
To break the bonds of neglect,
To reach out a hand of help.
To break the bond of tears,
To see with awe and wonder.
To break the bonds of loss,
To rejoice in all G-d’s works.
Postscript: Click here for an annotated list of all of my Passover prayers, with links. This is the first prayer that I’ve written specifically to be used as a responsive reading.
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Here’s a list of my prayers that would make lovely additions to your Passover Seder, divided into four categories: prayers about freedom, prayers for social justice, prayers for Hallel and Counting the Omer. Many of them appear in Haggadah Companion: Meditations and Readings. Some appear in This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. To read them, click on the name of the prayer:
A Passover meditation about the nature freedom, redemption, release. I’ve used this format of parallel stanzas for other holiday prayers, including Yom Kippur, Hanukah and counting the Omer. This piece appears in my new bookThis Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day from CCAR Press, as does “The Season of Counting.”
The Season of Freedom
This is the season of freedom:
Of freedom from the will of tyrants,
Of freedom from the bondage of self,
To become a nation and a people.
This is the season of release:
Of release from captivity and oppression,
Of release from a foreign land,
To receive G-d’s Holy Word.
This is the season of redemption:
Of redeeming our bodies and souls,
Of redeeming our strength and power,
In service to Am Yisroel.
This is the season of freedom:
Of reliving the ancient journey,
Of remembering the treacherous path.
This is the season that calls us to stand together,
The season that summons us to G-d’s Law,
The season that leads us home.
Human trafficking is a crime against humanity that still flourishes. This prayer uses the broadest definition of human trafficking: illegal trade of humans for sexual exploitation, forced labor or modern-day slavery. The sex trade is the key driver of trafficking. This prayer is appropriate for the Passover Seder and appears in my book, Haggadah Companion: Meditations and Readings. To listen, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.
Addendum, October 14, 2015: The FBI announced that 149 underage trafficking victims were recovered and 153 pimps were arrested in a nationwide human trafficking operation conducted throughout the United States last week. Here’s a link to the FBI press release. Here are eight facts about the sex trade.
Against Human Trafficking
G-d of the prisoner,
G-d of the slave and the captive,
The voice of suffering echoes across the land.
Lonely weeping in a night that never ends.
Our brothers
Are sold like coal
To be burned and discarded,
Traded like empty boxcars,
To haul unbearable loads of
Cruelty and degradation.
Our sisters
Are kidnapped and conned,
Used like empty vessels,
Their bodies abused and violated,
Their hearts and souls assaulted.
Source of comfort,
Rock of love and truth,
You call upon us to stand
In the name of justice and freedom:
To witness against human life
Treated as chattel,
To fight those who
Trade human beings as property,
To muster our power and energy
Against this force of evil.
Bless those who dedicate their lives to human rescue.
Grant them the fortitude to battle in the name
Of the unknown, the unseen,
Those who have been forgotten.
May the work of their hands never falter
Nor despair deter them from their holy calling.
Bless those in human bondage with hope and courage.
Grant them the strength and fortitude
To face the shames and tyrannies forced upon them.
Hasten their release.
Grant them lives of health and prosperity,
Joy and peace.
Blessed are You, G-d of All Being,
Who summons us to liberate the oppressed.
Postscript: Other prayers in this series include “Against Poverty” and “Against Tyranny.” In January, 2011, this prayer was used by the ATZUM Task Force on Human Trafficking http://www.tfht.org/. TFHT was headed to Israel to lobby for criminalizing the act of buying sex. The demand for paid sex fuels the crime of human trafficking. As part of the mission send off, Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor of Congregation Da’at Elohim in New York City read it at Friday night services. Peggy Sakow and other members of the Temple Emanu-El Beth Sholom, Montreal, Committee Against Human Trafficking and Interfaith Coalition were profoundly generous in their guidance and support of crafting this prayer. Three other social justice prayers appear in Haggadah Companion: Meditations and Readings, including “Against Poverty.”
For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.If you like this prayer, please post a link to Facebook, your blog or mention it in a tweet. Please consider making a contribution to support this site and my writing.
“Alden has become one of Reform Judaism’s master poet-liturgists…" - Religion News Service, Dec. 23, 2020
“Mesmerizing, spiritual, provocative, and thoughtful, Alden was everything you would want in a guest scholar and teacher.” – Rabbi Denise L. Eger, Congregation Kol Ami, Los Angeles, and Past President, CCAR
"Alden Solovy has become one of the most revered liturgists of the last decade…" - Jewish Post & Opinion, March 29, 2023
“Alden left everyone feeling inspired.” – Cantor Jeri Robins, Shabbat Chair, NewCAJE6
Here are meditations and prayers for and about Israel. They are divided into two categories: Israel, Our Home; and, For Safety and Peace.
