Posts Tagged ‘Jew’

 

Faith Reunion

Posted on: March 8th, 2017 by Alden

This prayer is for use at Jewish/Muslim interfaith gatherings. I wrote it about an hour ago in response to a tweet from Rabbi Rachel Barenblat asking for a prayer for a Muslim/Jewish student interfaith gathering. She needed it right away. Rav Danya Ruttenberg tweeted to Rachel and added me: “Why wouldn’t you just write one? You’re so good at that.” After a few back and forth tweets, I began to write. 33 minutes later, I finished this. Rachel is sharing it with the student committee later today.

Faith Reunion
Children of Abraham,
Daughters and sons of Ishmael and Isaac,
We are family,
Cousins and kin,
Separated only by time and history.

Let this moment be a celebration.
Let this moment be a holy convocation.
Let this be a moment of blessed reunion.

Some of us proclaim: Allāhu akbar (الله أكبر).
Some of us proclaim: Adonai, Hu Ha’Elohim (יי הוא האלוהים).
All of us yearn for holiness and light.
Each of us prays for kindness and grace.
Together we will build a world of justice and peace.

One G-d,
Voice of Creation,
Whisper of Eternity,
Source and Shelter,
Let our voices resound in the heartbeat of our peoples.
Let our hopes resound in the pulse of our longings.
Bless those who are here.
Bless those who stayed away.
Bless the doubter and the cynic.
Bless the hopeful and the optimist,
That one day
All peoples embrace each other,
With Your love.

© 2017 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: This piece borrows a few lines from my prayer “For Peace in the Middle East.”

Please check out my Meet the Author video 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: The Mastery Foundation

Halfway Point

Posted on: June 23rd, 2011 by tobendlight

When I arrived in Israel, my grief came rushing in. The feeling was so close to the surface that I felt fragile like glass, glass at the edge of a mountain. In a strong wind. It took all my strength not to break into tears – and into pieces – at any moment. So I hardened my heart. For safety.

I began to have a fantasy: I’m sitting on a park bench next to the oldest Chasid in the world. He has a long white beard and soft smiling eyes. His black coat lies across his lap, his white shirt glistening with sunlight. I’m yelling at him. “What gives you the right to be so certain, so sure? How dare you? How dare you? To think you think that you know. That you think you have secrets.” My intestines boil and my bones shake. His eyes continue to smile, his hands folded across his lap. I shout and I yell and I scream  and then I collapse onto his shoulder. I’m crying the tears of a thousand men who haven’t cried for a thousand years. Sobbing. Wailing. He takes his arm and lays it gently across my back.

In Tzfat, I met some dear, sweet Jews, young and old. I didn’t yell at any them, Chasid or progressive. I cried a few tears. Not many. Instead, I listened. Then I started to sing again. And to open my heart. As they would say, Baruch Hashem.

This shift is reflected in the changing emotions of the three prayers that I’ve completed so far in Israel, written in this order:

I’m now a little more than halfway through my journey. I’ve slept in six cities and 10 different beds. I’ve met, spoken to and hiked with more than 50 people: families and students, young professionals and travelers, long-time olim and olim chadashim, old friends and friends-of-friends, secular Jews and Chabadniks. More to come.

Baruch Hashem.

© 2011 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Please excuse any intermittent technical problems with the header of this site. I’ll address it when I am back in the U.S.

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