Posts Tagged ‘Miriam’

 

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

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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.”

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Photo Source: Kibbutz Nir Oz

Crossing

Posted on: January 12th, 2022 by Alden

A prayer for Shabbat Beshalach in which we hear the Song of the Sea, sung after the just-freed Hebrew slaves, being pursued by armies, make it safely across the sea. This piece appears in my book This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Crossing
Every journey of liberation
Crosses the sea,
Pursued by a vicious past,
Surrounded by fragile miracles,
On a steady march
To an unknown destination.

Every journey of liberation
Begins at midnight,
In the darkest hour of oppression,
With the blood of a sacrifice,
With secret signs
And anxious anticipation.

Let us sing a song of salvation.
A song of absolution, benevolence, and compassion,
Of deliverance, freedom, and emancipation,
Of power, rescue, and release,
Of pardon, restoration, and reprieve,
Of the might and the mercy of our Maker,
Of God’s generosity and grace.

!מִי כָמֹכָה בָּאֵלִם, יי! מִי כָּמֹכָה נֶאְדָּר בַּקֹּדֶשׁ, נוֹרָא תְהִלֹּת עֹשֵׂה פֶלֶא
Mi chamochah ba-eilim, Adonai!
Mi kamochah, nedar bakodesh,
Nora t’hilot, oseih feleh!
Who is like You, O God, among the gods that are worshiped?
Who is like You, majestic in holiness,
Awesome in splendor, working wonders?

Let every journey of liberation
End on the opposite shore,
Exhausted but jubilant,
On the edge of an undiscovered land,
With shouts of joy and delight,
When our struggle leads to redemption.

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

New here? Subscribe here to get my newest prayers by email.
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Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul , This Grateful Heart, 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.”

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

Photo Source: Hebrew Academy

Who is Like You

Posted on: December 6th, 2018 by Alden

A meditation on the greatness of God, to be read before singing Mi Chamocha, a line declaring God’s greatness from the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:11) often chanted in Jewish prayer. This piece appears in my new book, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, from CCAR Press.

Who is Like You
Who is like You,
God of mystery and majesty,
Distant and present,
Thundering and quiet,
The beginning and the end,
The atom and the cosmos,
The darkness and the light,
The One and the All,
Pillar and foundation,
Artist of sea and sky,
Author of the miraculous and the mundane,
Source of life,
Blessing and sustaining creation.

Who is like You,
Glorious in holiness,
To whom we praise,
To whom we give thanks,
The God who redeemed us from Egypt,
The God who parted the sea,
The God to whom Miriam and Moses
Led us in song.

© 2019 CCAR Press from This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings

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Postscript: Here’s a link to “Peace Will Come,” which will also appear in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings.

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: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Twitter feed

Sing Hallelujah

Posted on: April 9th, 2011 by tobendlight

To sing as an expression of G-d’s love and G-d’s gifts, that is to Sing Hallelujah. This and a companion prayer, “Dance Hallelujah,” would fit well into the Hallel section of your Passover Seder. To listen along as you read, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

 

Sing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
A hymn of glory,
A chant of praise,
A song of thanksgiving.
Voices raised, hearts to heaven.
Lungs full and strong.
A breath, a note, a lyric, a tune.
A call of love,
An echo of truth,
Resounding with joy and praise.

Let my hopes carry me toward wondrous deeds.
Let my heart lift me toward sacred wisdom.
Let my breath lead me to majestic truth.
Let my words exalt Your Holy Name.

Hallelujah
A song of hope,
A harmony of justice,
A chorus of mercy.

G-d of Miriam,
Prophet who danced by the sea,
Teach me the song of life,
Of dedication and zeal,
Of wonder and glory.
Teach me to sing my Hallelujah.
Teach me to live my Hallelujah.
A song of righteousness.
A song of thanksgiving.
A song for the generations.

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

Postscript: Here are links to related prayers: “For the Gift of Song,” “For the Gift of Dance” and “For the Gift of Music.” Please take a look at my book, Jewish Prayers of Hope and Healing.

Click here for a list of prayers that would make lovely additions to a Seder.

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Miriam Danced

Posted on: January 13th, 2011 by tobendlight

“And the women dancing with their timbrels
Followed Miriam as she sang her song…”
   ― Debbie Friedman, z”l, inspired by Exodus 15-20-21

“You turned my mourning into dancing
So that my soul might turn to you…”
   ― Debbie Friedman, z”l, inspired by Psalm 30

Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom in Montreal is using four of my prayers in a meditation booklet for Shabbat Shira in memory of Debbie Friedman, z”l: two about music and song, reposted here, and two about dance, reposted below. It’s humbling to see our liturgy, Debbie’s songs and my prayers together. Brenda Epstein compiles mediations for the Temple. Thanks for sharing my work with your community.

Dance Hallelujah
Hallelujah
A dance of wonder,
A dance of joy and thanksgiving.
Arms raised, hands to the sky.
Feet solid, connected to earth.
A step, a bend, a twirl, a leap.
A breath of light,
A stream of color,
Spinning toward radiance and splendor.

Let my feet lead me toward Your holy realm.
Let my legs carry me toward Your divine word.
Let my arms lift praises toward Your marvelous works.
Let my body exclaim the power of Your awesome ways.

Hallelujah
A dance of light and love,
A dance of energy and endurance,
A dance of humility and grace.

G-d of Miriam,
Prophet who danced by the sea,
Teach me the dance of awe and mystery,
Of devotion and ecstasy,
Of passion and praise.
Teach me to dance my Hallelujah.
Teach me to live my Hallelujah.
A dance of radiance,
A dance of splendor,
A dance of peace.

For the Gift of Dance
G-d, we give thanks for the gift of dance,
For the gift of rhythm and movement,
For the gift of power, awe, wonder and thanksgiving
Expressed through our bodies
In celebration of Your Divine creation.
Hear this prayer for those who dance for love and healing,
For prayer and repentance,
Seeking wholeness and light.
Make their bodies your vessel.
Let heaven pour grace and beauty through them
So that they overflow with Your spirit,
Drawing others to Your mysteries.
So that when we see this dance
Our souls turn back to You in celebration.
Together, we offer our spirits back to heaven,
And rejoice.

© 2010 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.

Postscript: Here are links to the four prayers selected by Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom with audio: “For the Gift of Song,” “For the Gift of Dance,” “For the Gift of Music,” and “Dance Hallelujah.”

Please use these prayers. See “Share the Prayer!” in the right hand column.

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