Posts Tagged ‘marriage’

 

Wedding Blessing for Nikki and Pro

Posted on: March 29th, 2019 by Alden

This is the prayer I wrote for my daughter and her husband, reading it at their wedding last weekend. Here’s a link to the prayer that I wrote for their engagement, called “Bind Our Hearts.” Here are three more related prayers: “A Moment of Love,” “For an Open Heart” and “Blessing for a Spouse/Partner.”

Wedding Blessing for Nikki and Pro
Love.
A gift. A blessing.
A legacy. An inheritance.

Eternal One,
Source and Shelter,
Light and Truth,
Bless Nikki and Pro
With the simplicity and the splendor
Of the love that binds
Two together,
The gentleness and the grandeur,
The hope and the faith,
The trust and the forgiveness
They will need as they
Build and grow
Their lives together.
Bless them with abundance,
With health, with joy,
With good fortune,
And with children, healthy and strong,
So that they establish a Jewish home
Filled with the blessings of Torah
And the beauty of mitzvot.

Love.
A gift. A blessing.
A legacy. An inheritance.
Let it shine throughout your days.
Let it radiate throughout your years.
Let it guide you and shelter you
With the brilliance and the blessings
From G-d’s Sukkat Shalom,
G-d’s Tabernacle of Peace,
All the days of your lives.

© 2019 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com.

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Postscript: Special thanks to our dear friend Rabbi Joe Black for officiating.

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” 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: Family photo

Looking Back at Our Long Marriage

Posted on: April 23rd, 2018 by Alden

A simple prayer to be said after years and years of marriage. Here’s a related prayer, a “Blessing for a Spouse / Partner.” And for those just starting out, here are two more: “Bind Our Hearts” and “My Life in Yours.”

Looking Back at Our Long Marriage
Where has the time gone?
The days. The memories.
Where will time lead us?

Thank you, my dear,
For the years of devotion,
And the blessing of forgiveness.
For the seasons of laughter,
And the blessing of tears.

It was something, you and me, wasn’t it?
It still is, although most of the seasons are behind us.
We will celebrate and rejoice,
Mourn and love,
As we always have.

Thank you, G-d of love,
For this amazing marriage.
Watch over us
As we grow old together.

© 2018 Alden Solovy and tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

CELEBRATE MY BIRTHDAY: Thanks to CCAR Press for offering a 30% off sale on This Grateful Heart for my birthday. On Thursday, April 26, 2018, go to grateful.ccarpress.org  and use the code Alden30 at checkout. It’s valid for 24 hours and takes 30% off the retail price, making it $10.46, plus shipping.

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” 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 Credit: Caroline’s Journal

Bind Our Hearts

Posted on: January 8th, 2017 by Alden

imageMazal Tov to my daughter Nikki Braziel-Solovy and her man Prometheus Kevin Trotsky on their engagement. This wedding day prayer alludes to the sheva brachot – the set of seven prayers said under the chuppah, the wedding canopy. Each of the stanzas contains seven lines. The middle stanza is an interpretation of the sheva brachot, borrowing hints and ideas from each of the seven prayers. This piece appears in This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day from CCAR Press.

Bind Our Hearts
Hope and love,
Love and promise,
Promise and commitment,
Commitment and action,
A sacred pairing,
A holy union,
A celebration of life.

Let this cup of sweetness overflow
Into G-d’s glorious handiwork,
As we delight in creation,
Seeing the divine in each other,
Sharing this abundance with the generations
As loving companions and dedicated friends,
Rejoicing together, now and forever.

Bind our hearts with awe,
Bind our hearts with wonder,
Grant us wisdom and understanding,
Patience and forgiveness,
Days of radiance and light,
Nights of comfort and peace,
Lives of blessing, together.

© 2017 CCAR Press from This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day

Postscript: See also “A Moment of Love,” “For an Open Heart” and “Blessing for a Spouse/Partner.”

Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” 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: Family Snaps on iCloud

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