Tag Archive for "redemption"

Posts Tagged ‘redemption’

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.

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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.”

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Photo by Alden Solovy

Light from Beyond

Posted on: December 12th, 2023 by Alden

A Hanukkah poem about light, seeking hope in the darkness of war, terror, and hostages in captivity. The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies — where I am the Liturgist in Residence — invited me to write a prayer poem for Hanukkah as part of its series “Illuminating Chanukah: Artistic Reflections on Jewish Texts.” Each artist was asked to interpret a Hanukkah text. This poem is an interpretation of a teaching of the Sefat Emet “that each Hannukah candle draws from the or haganuz, the hidden light of creation.” For the full text, go to Sefaria.

Light from Beyond
When you look
With all of your heart
Into the flames
Dedicated to miracles,
You may glimpse
That special light
God created
On the first day of existence.

How comforting to know
That God’s holiness
And majesty
Still reach this world
Of war and terror.

How wonderful to feel
That God’s love
And blessings
Still shine
To warm our souls.

How glorious to see
That mysteries from heaven
Still wait in secret
To bring joy and light
To all of creation.

When you look
With all of your heart
Into the Hanukkah lights,
You will see
That miracles
Beyond our sight
Will one day bring joy and peace
Beyond our deepest yearning.

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Photo Source: NOAA

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.

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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.

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

The Court of the Captives

Posted on: October 30th, 2023 by Alden

This is a prayer poem for all of the hostages in Gaza. We at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies have a special link to hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the son of our own Rachel Goldberg. He is wounded and needs urgent medical care. Hear Rachel speak to the UN. This FaceBook post will help US citizens write letters to your congresspersons urging their support for a speedy release of the hostages. #bring_hersh_home #BringThemHomeNow

The Court of the Captives
One day,
The court of the captives
Will convene
Before the halls of power.
They will bring
Their torment and suffering
As evidence against us,
As evidence of our failure
To protect them,
As evidence of our failure
To redeem them
With speed and urgency.

On that day,
The court of the innocent
At the gates of heaven
Will join the chorus –
The newly murdered,
Babies and dreamers,
Parents and children –
Bringing their blood
As evidence against us,
As evidence of our failure
To protect them,
As evidence of our failure
To secure our land and our people.

On that day,
The court of the captives,
And the court of the innocent,
Will minister to each other
At the gates of righteousness,
Both in heaven
And on earth,
Offering torn cloth
Soaked in tears
To bind their wounds,
To bless the living,
And to console the lost.

Today,
Yes, today,
The court of the captives
And the court of the innocent in heaven
Convene,
Arraying the charges
Before us,
And wait,
Still wait,
For us to answer.

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Postscript: This prayer / poem was influenced by my previous piece: “After Uvalde: The Court of the Innocent.”

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Against Worker Exploitation, Revised

Posted on: August 7th, 2023 by Alden

This revision of my 2011 prayer is inspired by my daughter Dana’s dedication to the Writers Guild of America strike. Dana is a member of the Art Directors Guild and a television writer. She’s creating strike ‘swag’ with the profits supporting the Entertainment Community Fund, which gave her the opportunity to meet Teamster Local 399 leader Lindsay Dougherty. I’ve updated this prayer by including some of the jobs that Teamsters represent, as well as the entertainment world. The original version appears in the Labor Day section of my book, This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day.

Against Worker Exploitation, Revised
G-d of the laborer,
The trucker and the writer,
G-d of those who build and bake and fly and act,
Those beside our hospital beds and hauling our trash,
G-d of the migrant and the ensnared,
The voice of the misused echoes across the land,
Overworked and undervalued in the name of profit,
Our children and our parents,
Our brothers and our sisters,
Toil, economically chained to taskmasters,
By need, by poverty, or by misfortune.
Bound to unbearable hours
And cruel conditions
So that others may reap the rewards
Of their labor, their suffering, and their endurance.

Source of abundance and grace,
Creator of affluence and wealth,
You call upon us to stand in the name of justice and fairness,
To witness against the abuse of economic power,
To battle theft by dominance and clout,
To fight corporate neglect of human beings,
To speak out against exploitation.

Bless those who dedicate their lives to the voiceless and forgotten,
To expose callousness in field and factory,
And greed in boardrooms and negotiations.
Bless those who plead on behalf of workers
Before the seats of power,
Before governments and corporations.
Give them wisdom and skill, courage and determination.
May the work of their hands never falter
Nor despair deter them from this holy calling.

Blessed are You, G-d of All Being,
Who summons us to oppose oppression.

Postscript: This prayer is from my series of prayers “Against…” The series includes: “Against Poverty,” “Against Human Trafficking” and “Against Tyranny.” They follow a common format and focus on tikkun olam, repairing the world. Other related prayers include: “Upon Losing Employment” and “For Work.” For Vayigash 5773, I posted a prayer for family healing called “Dear Brother, Dear Sister.” This prayer first appeared on this site on October 21, 2011.

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!” For notices of new prayers, please subscribe. You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Credit: Food Chain via Care 2

I Walked with God

Posted on: June 20th, 2023 by Alden

This is a new meditation on a sudden and unexpected encounter with the Divine. And a quick personal note: Friends, I’ve been working on book, music, and other projects and have not consistently posted new prayer / poems here as I have in the past. My plan, moving forward, is to return to being more consistent with sharing new work with you. Thanks for your understanding.

I Walked with God
For a fraction
Of a fraction
Of a moment,
I walked with You.
It began
And ended
So quickly
That it was gone
Before I felt
Your presence.
How is that fair?
How is that kind?
To answer my yearning
With desire.
To answer my longing
With emptiness.
To leave me with only
A shadow of a memory.
To wonder what
Could have been
If I was ready
For You.
Or maybe,
Just maybe,
You are asking
Me to remember,
To always remember,
How close
We can be.

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Postscript: I previously posted a preview of this meditation on a Facebook thread. After my friend and teacher, Rabbi Dov Laiman, wondered if even the briefest encounter with the divine should be a source joy, rather than disappointment, I added the last seven lines.

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Photo by Alden Solovy

Inside the (Hanukkah) Light

Posted on: December 18th, 2022 by Alden

This meditation on light pluses with hope, carrying echoes of Hanukkah. It’s about seeing, feeling, and loving the light shining around us, and our yearning to be a source of light and hope for the world. I wrote it in 2012 on my Aliyah flight. My friend Cantor Brad Hyman set as a song in 2017. In 2021, CCAR Press published it my third solo volume with them, This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer. Here’s an article by Cantor Hyman on his inspiration for the music on Reform Judaism.org. I’m reposting this for Hanukkah 2022/5783.

Inside the Light
A rainbow shines
Inside the light.
If you could be the dew drop
You would always see it.

Stillness waits
Inside the light.
If you could be the sky
You would always feel it.

The sunrise dawns
Inside the light.
If you could be the horizon
You would always find it.

Freedom flows
Inside the light.
If you could be the wind
You would always ride it.

Beauty rises
Inside the light.
If you could be the sparrow
You would always reach it.

Mystery pulses
Inside the light.
If you could be the wonder
You would always know it.

Majesty reigns
Inside the light.
If you could be the wisdom
You would always hear it.

Faith rests
Inside the light.
If you could be the eagle
You would always hold it.

Your soul glows
Inside the light.
If you could be yourself
You would never leave it.

Postscript: Here’s another link to Cantor Hyman’s musical setting. My other Hanukkah prayers include: “Lamps Within” and “The Season of Dedication.”

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Grateful Heart, This Joyous Soul, 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.”

Photo Source: Ron Almog

Bees

Posted on: July 6th, 2022 by Alden

An observation, wrapped in a yearning. A prayer. A poem of bees and guns. See also: “Against Gun Violence” and “After a Deadly Rampage”

Bees
The bees
Do not stop
Collecting pollen
When humans
Murder each other
With guns.

The bees think:
How strange,
How low
On the evolutionary scale
Must those humans be,
That they haven’t yet
Figured out
How to make honey
Or peace.

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Postscript: See also: “Against Gun Violence” and “After a Deadly Rampage”

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul , This Grateful Heart, and This Precious Life. Here’s a link to my ELItalk, “Falling in Love with Prayer..” 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.

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

Photo by Alden Solovy

For Three Leaders, For the World

Posted on: March 15th, 2022 by Alden

A new prayer for Ukraine and the world. The intention of this prayer is flexibility in use. The three middle stanzas can be removed from the prayer as the situation changes, or if a particular individual or congregation does not want to specifically name world leaders in prayer. It seems to me, however, that in this precarious moment prayers for key leaders are critical. They’re offered here as important, but optional as we all yearn for peace. Along with my “Hero of Ukraine,” this could be part of a multi-prayer liturgy for peace in the region and the world.

For Three Leaders, For the World
G-d of compassion,
Put an end to the war in Ukraine
And all wars throughout the world.
Look with favor on the refugees,
The homeless, the wounded,
The suffering, the starving,
And the newly bereaved.
Grant a perfect rest
Under Your canopy of peace
To those who have perished
At the ugly hand of war.
Extend Your canopy of peace
From the highest heavens
To this earth.

Bless Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
With continued strength and resolve
To defend his people against the onslaught,
Inspiring world sympathy and support.

Bless U.S. President Joe Biden
With wisdom and skill to face the challenge of history
As Europe prepares for a broader conflict
And fears world war.

Bless Russian President Vladimir Putin
With a change of mind,
A change of heart and soul,
To release the tools of war,
To pick up the tools of peace.

G-d of peace,
Release the citizens of Ukraine
From occupation and war.
Grant them resilience and vitality.
Give them comfort and hope.
End this violence and suffering.
For life renewed.
For healing and building.
For a better world.
“Let justice come in waves like water
And righteousness flow like a river” (Amos 5:24),
So that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).

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Postscript: See also: “Hero of Ukraine.”

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Photo Source: News Sites

Guest Writer: Hannah Greenberg

Posted on: January 24th, 2022 by Alden

My friend Hannah Greenberg is in her second year of studies at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. Earlier this academic year, a group of students wrote their own prayers and meditations based on my prayer “In Praise,” which was handed out to the class to use as a kavannah for t’fillah. This is her stunning prayer, riffing off of Isaiah 6:3, which we recite in the Kedusah, “Holy, holy, holy, Adonai of Hosts, whose presence fills the earth!” “In Praise” appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, from CCAR Press.

Music of the Infinite
Music of the infinite
קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ
יְ-הֹ-וָ-ה צְבָאוֹת
Our voices join an angelic choir
To praise
To call out
To yearn
For the Divine

Music of the infinite
For the Conductor of the world
Virtuosic voices
Harmonies combine
To create
To join
To revere
The Divine

Music of the infinite
To sanctify
To recognize
To laud
The Oneness

Music of the infinite
We join
To seek compassion
To find greatness
To renew faith
In the Absolute

Music of the infinite
We are finite
We are infinitesimal
We are human

Music of the infinite
On this new year
We sing
We bless
We rejoice

Music of the infinite
All we can give to You
is our voice
Our soul

Music of the infinite
We join in
קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ
יְ-הֹ-וָ-ה צְבָאוֹת
מְלֹא כָל הָאָֽרֶץ כְּבוֹדוֹ

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Postscript: Hannah’s prayer, which has timeless resonance, was originally written for Rosh Hashanah. Because of issues with my website, and being on deadline for a new book, this took me much longer to post than I’d anticipated. For us, I believe it is worth the wait. To Hannah, my applogies for the delay. Check out other guest writers here.

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Photo by Alden Solovy

Posts Tagged ‘redemption’

Posters, Necklaces and Graffiti

Light from Beyond

Thirteen Birds

The Court of the Captives

I Walked with God

Inside the (Hanukkah) Light

Bees

For Three Leaders, For the World

Guest Writer: Hannah Greenberg

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