Posts Tagged ‘Israel’

 

How to Count to 700

Posted on: August 31st, 2025 by Alden

On Friday it will be day 700 of captivity for the hostages held in Gaza, an impossible and incomprehensible number. Days of hell in the tunnels of hell. Days of yearning and agony for their families. Days of fear and terror. Here is “How to Count to 700” for your personal use and perhaps for Shabbat evening services. Use the icon below to download a PDF of all of my meditations on counting since 7 October 2023.

Icon

Counting Days in Captivity

1 file(s) 100.83 KB
Download

How to Count to 700
Paint a stone yellow.
Then paint another.
And another.
Paint 700 stones
For 700 days
In the tunnels of hell.
If you are brave,
You will keep painting.
Paint stones yellow
Until you are exhausted
And famished
And have lost all track of time.
Paint until there is nothing
But darkness and yellow.
Then, maybe then,
You will know
The impossible
Reality
Of 700.

© 2025 Alden Solovy

Postscript: I am currently the student Rabbi at Or HaTzafon, Light of the North, Jewish Congregation of Fairbanks, AK. Follow my essays on this adventure with my “Torah Borealis” substack enewsletter. Check it out by clicking here.

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

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.”

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

 

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.

© 2025 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

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

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.”

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

Loose the Angels of Peace

Posted on: January 16th, 2025 by Alden

A prayer of fear, hope, and longing as Israel moves toward a ceasefire deal to bring hostages back home.

Loose the Angels of Peace
God of eternity,
I am afraid
To allow hope
Into my heart
Or joy
Into my soul.

How I long
To see our hostages released.
How I yearn
For the captives to be redeemed.
How I pray
For the kidnapped to be free.

Prepare my heart
To receive our loved ones,
Released from the tunnels,
With the fullness of compassion and joy,
Even as You require that my heart
Stay broken
For those who remain in captivity
And to mourn the lost.

God of history,
Open the gates of freedom
For the innocent.
Wash away their pain
With a river of healing.
Wash away their nightmares
With the secret light
That You stored upon creation
For the righteous.

Source and Shelter,
Let loose the angels of peace.
For certainly they, too,
Must be held in captivity.
Then, God of life,
Hope will flow unbound,
And songs of rejoicing
Will shatter the heavens,
When the words of the prophet
Are fulfilled:

ויש־תקוה לאחריתך נאם־יהוה ושבו בנים לגבולם׃
And there is hope for your future, declares Adonai,
Your children shall return to their country.

Amen

© 2025 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

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.”

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

Photo Source: www.kidnappedfromisrael.com/candles

When Will We Sing?

Posted on: April 25th, 2024 by Alden

Tradition holds that the newly-freed Israelites crossed the Red Sea on the seventh day of their journey. With Pharoah’s army in hot pursuit, God opens the path to life and salvation. Then we sing! The Torah reading for the seventh day of Passover includes the triumphant Song of the Sea (Exodus 15), led by Miriam and Moses. In the name of the 133 remaining hostages in Hamas captivity in Gaza, this poem asks: “When Will We Sing?”

When Will We Sing?
We know what happens next.
Pursued by an army of hate,
Pinned between death by sword
And death by drowning,
God parts the sea and we cross to salvation.

O, to dance at the shores of safety with 133.
O, to sing of redemption at the banks of refuge.
Hasn’t their pain and suffering
Yet risen to the highest
Realms of heaven?

We know what is supposed to happen next.
Miriam and Moses lead us in triumphant song.
God of Mercy, when will we sing?
When will we sing of freedom again?

© 2024 Alden Solovy and ToBendLight

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: See also: “Elijah and Miriam: Two Poems for Passover.”

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.

Photo Source: Rothschild Haggadah, ca. 1450, National Library of Israel via Wikipedia

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.

© 2024 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

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.

Photo Source: Kibbutz Nir Oz

Posters, Necklaces and Graffiti

Posted on: March 10th, 2024 by Alden

A prayer poem for the hostages held in Gaza, abducted by Hamas on October 7. We pray for their health, safety, and immediate return to Israel and the arms of their families.

Posters, Necklaces, and Graffiti
When evil took you hostage,
We made you into a poster,
A tee shirt,
And a necklace.
A hoodie, a hat, and an empty chair.
Slogans and graffiti
Painted on walls and carved into our hearts.
A yellow ribbon,
A feast without guests,
A timer counting the days,
The hours,
The minutes,
And the seconds
Of your captivity.
Rallies, marches, and protests,
To keep your absence,
Your kidnapping and captivity,
Alive in evert moment of our days,
And every action of our lives.
To take your cause
To the seats of power around the globe.
So that when you return
You know how we yearned for you,
Prayed for you,
And fought for you
Throughout your ordeal.

© 2024 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: Here are some of my other prayer poems coming out of October 7 and the war: “Nothing Left but Tears,” “The Court of the Captives,” “Tears and Rain,” and “To Hope Again.”

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.

Photo by Alden Solovy

To Hope Again

Posted on: March 6th, 2024 by Alden

A prayer poem about the pain of losing hope and the struggle to find hope again, turning to the most unexpected source of potential answers…those who were murdered in the shock and terror assault on Israel on October 7.

To Hope Again
My heart has abandoned this world,
To seek the lost who refuse
Entrance to heaven.

Yes, the innocent dead
Have refused their places
In the holy realms,
To fly on the wind,
To dwell among the stars,
To haunt the bloody earth
With messages of love and despair,
Beseeching comfort from the ancient deep
From which all life emerged.

My heart has abandoned this world,
Praying to learn from the innocent dead
How to hope again.

© 2024 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: Here are some of my other prayer poems coming out of October 7 and the war: “Nothing Left but Tears,” “The Court of the Captives,” and “Tears and Rain.”

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.

Photo by Alden Solovy

Thirteen Birds

Posted on: November 26th, 2023 by Alden

Thirteen Hamas hostages were released on Friday evening, the first of a planned set of four releases, totaling 50 hostages. On Saturday another 13 or 14 were to be released. As of this writing, Hamas has postponed the release and continues to delay. In Israel, these moments are fraught with mixed emotions, joy at the releases – especially the children – combined with fear, anger, and sorrow knowing that so many more hostages will remain in captivity. The slow, day-by-day release feels like a form of slow torture, as do the delays, as does the knowledge that so many more will be left behind.

Thirteen Birds
Thirteen birds
Flew from the depths of darkness,
To the light
Of home.

How much like a vision of glory,
Like the dawn of creation,
When birds first took flight,
To see their faces,
Free birds again,
To see their families
Hold them and
Bring them close.

How much like torture
To wait for the next flock
To be released
From the subterranean cage.
Restless anticipation,
Watching for signs
Of life,
Waiting as the heartless captors
Taunt us with delays,
Waiting for more of our children
To be set free
From the bowels of the earth.

Thirteen birds
Flew home
From the depths of hell,
Into the arms of love,
Into the bosom of our people.
We pray and we wait,
For more to be released.
We pray and we wait
For all of our birds to
Fly home.

© 2023 Alden Solovy

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: My first draft of this prayer poem was much darker, emphasizing the pain of the trickle of release and the fear that many more hostages will remain in the hands of Hamas. Thanks to my friend Miriam Fine for reminding me that my work is about hope, even in the face of deep pain and sorrow.

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.

Photo Source: Schneider Children’s Hospital on Times of Israel

Thirty Days

Posted on: November 6th, 2023 by Alden

This is a prayer / poem for the shloshim of the massacred on Oct. 7, the traditional marker of thirty days after the death of of a loved one. The poem makes the assertion that thirty days of mourning cannot be enough for 1,400 murdered, and that thirty days of prayer is not enough for 240 captives. Use this along with the song “Nothing Left but Tears.”

Thirty Days
Thirty days of hell.
Thirty days without you.
Murdered. Kidnapped.
Assaulted. Decapitated.
Violated. Violated again.

Thirty days of tears
Cannot bring back
The souls of the massacred.
Thirty days of tears
Cannot restore the captives
To their families.

Woe unto the land
That has soaked up
So much blood.
Woe unto the land
That yearns for her children
To return home.

Thirty days. And thirty days.
And thirty days. And thirty days…

Thirty days
One thousand
Four hundred times.
Thirty days
Of tears
For each of the lost.

Thirty days. And thirty days.
And thirty days. And thirty days…

Thirty days
Two hundred
Forty times.
Thirty days
Of repentance
For each of the captives.

Thirty days of grief.
Thirty days of mourning.
Thirty days of anguish.
Again and again and again.

So we become
Thirty thousand days of resolve.
Again and again and again.
For never again.
Forever, to eternity.

© 2023 Alden Solovy and ToBendLight

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

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.

Nothing Left but Tears

Posted on: October 16th, 2023 by Alden

A song in response to the terror invasion into Israel by Hamas. Lyrics by Alden Solovy. Music by Sue Radner Horowitz. Here is Sue singing “Nothing Left but Tears.” Find links to download the chords and/or the sheet music below the video. The lyrics follow.

Icon

Nothing Left but Tears, Lyrics and Chords

1 file(s) 50.53 KB
Download
Icon

Nothing Left But Tears, Sheet Music

1 file(s) 53.68 KB
Download


Nothing Left but Tears
I must be made of water.
I have nothing left but tears.

Daughters. Mothers.
My spirit aching.
Sisters. Brothers.
A heart that’s breaking.
I must be made of water.
I have nothing left but tears.

Blood and terror.
Children dying.
Fear and anger.
So much crying.
I must be made of water.
I have nothing left but tears.

Oh this heartbreak,
Silence howling.
Oh this heart ache,
Terror prowling.
I must be made of water.
I have nothing left but tears.

Not just water.
These tears, they feed me.
My bones are iron.
My people need me.

Lyrics © 2023 Alden Solovy, Music © 2023 Sue Radner Horowitz

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
Share the prayer! Email this to a friend.

Postscript: Listen to another Solovy / Horowitz collaboration, “Hallel in a Minor Key.”

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.

“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