Permissions
Please use these prayers. Share these gifts. Spread the word.
Use These Prayers (Permissions)
For prayers identified as “© 2017 CCAR Press from This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day,” “© 2019 CCAR Press from This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Anciet Yearnings,” or “© 2021 CCAR Press from This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer“: All uses require permission from CCAR Press. Please email the Press Operations Manager, Deborah Smilow, at dsmilow@ccarnet.org.
For other pieces that appear on this site: Permission is granted to print one copy of each prayer in its entirety without modification, including the copyright line, for personal use or to be read aloud in communal worship. Permission is granted to post a prayer once in its entirety without modification to a blog, website or Facebook page, including this copyright line: “© 2021 Alden Solovy and www.tobendlight.com. All rights reserved.” Printing multiple copies, duplication in any other form or any other use not mentioned here requires expressed written permission.
For short stories: Short stories may not be reprinted or used in any manner without expressed written permission.
Questions? Contact me via email at alden@tobendlight.com.
Please Help Share the Prayer
Here’s my request, the gift you can give me. Help me share the prayer:
- Post links to www.tobendlight.com to your Facebook or other social media accounts. Say a kind word. Encourage your friends to visit.
- Join the “To Bend Light” fan page on on Facebook and suggest it to your friends.
- Follow me on Twitter and suggest it to your friends.
- Mention this site in your blog. Add a link. Feature the blog in your blogroll.
- Write about this site (with the url) in your synagogue, chavurah, prayer circle or meditation group’s bulletin, newsletter, website, listserv, etc.
- Link this site to your synagogue, chavurah, prayer circle or meditation group’s website home page.
- Send an email about this site to all of your friends. Include a link to this site.
Please do as much of this as you’re able and comfortable doing. It’s my request that the more you use these prayers, the more you’ll do to help spread the words. I appreciate every effort.
Get Involved
Two more ideas for you to get involved:
- Post comments. What moved you? What missed the mark? Do these prayers remind you of other prayers? Other poems? Other authors? Which ones and why? How and when are you using them?
- Share your ideas. Do you have ideas for prayers that need to be written? Contact me via email.
Thanks for your interest and efforts.
53 Responses to “Permissions”
Alden,
What a moving, spiritual website! How grateful I am to Larry Kaufman for putting the word out on the iWorship listerve. How may I contact you privately to request permission to use your material, as per your request?
I’ll drop a quick note to you…and a thank you note to Larry, as well.
Hi Alden: Thank you for sharing this wonderful, spiritual and emotional site with me. I was very impressed, please keep in touch. Ralph
Alden,
Your prayer, “For a Critically Ill Child” is certainly a gift to our family in these difficult days. Reading it/listening to you speak reminded me that I need to read your prayers DAILY for they are a source of true sustainance for a weary soul. I have been reading many of your prayers tonight. What a gift. And “Share the Prayer” is an amazingly unselfish choice which heals hearts. I am proud to call you friend. And I am awed by your talent. You are truly a very gifted writer and a very wise healer. And from all accounts, you can make one tasty loaf of bread! Peace to you. Keep it up.
Thank you for this latest gift, my friend.
I thought this blog was superb and everything that you referenced to was quite relevant to the cause. Cheers.
Your prayers touched my heart. My late husband was Rabbi Morris Gordon, who was also quite eloquent. He passed on six years ago. Our dear friend and colleague was Rabbi Sidney Greenberg. Eloquent. Thank you for your heart and your poetic expression. I am reaching you thru David Eisenberg’s blog. He is my son. lori heyman gordon
Thanks Lori. David is a mentsch. I appreciate your kind words. Alden
Thanks for your comment about David. How do you know him? For how long? I gather you live in Chicago? Have we ever met? best, lori
Lori – David and I went to college together. I’ll send you my email address to continue this conversation. Best, Alden
I am writing to request permission to print your prayer, To the Terrorist, in a column in our congregational newsletter. The newsletter is distributed to about 200 readers. Could you grant me permission and appropriate wording?
With appreciation,
Rev. Dr. Wanda S. Neely
First Presbyterian Church
Kinston, NC 28501
The permission is on its way via email. Thanks for your interest. Alden
Your words have been heard in Mt. Sinai! Read this at Temple Beth Emeth of Mt. Sinai, New York on Shabbat evening. Much appreciated by the congregation. Thank you!
Nice to hear. Which prayer did you read?
Alden
The hospice prayers are so helpful. Am I permitted to keep copies for myself? If so, how? Thank you.
Keeva
I’m glad they are helpful. You’re welcome to print one copy of any prayer (for personal use) so long as you include on the printout the copyright line that’s at the bottom of the page.
Blessings,
Alden
Thank you God. Amin.
Very moving!
Thanks. I appreciate the support.
The prayers are very comforting in this time of need.My partner and I are in Mexico and your poem helped to soothe us as we wait for news from family and friends in NY.
Blessings. May you hear good news only.
Que o todo poderoso proteja as famílias e as crianças fiquem a salvo!!!!
Amen
Thank you for this magnificent prayer. As the mom of a Chayal boded (lone soldier), I feel speechless. You have given voice to those feelings and thoughts that some of us can barely eek out….may your next prayer be for better times, in a peaceful nation.
Dayna, thank you for sharing your love and fear for your chaiyal boded. My prayers and thanks are with you and your family.
It is a delicate moment but The Almighty will help us!!
I was very touched that an Israeli would take the time to write a prayer for healing for America. It was not lost on me this past week the similarity with the many acts of terror that have occurred in Eretz Yisrael. Baruch ” all of our family members who live in the Boston area (including some in Watertown) were out of town when the manhunt was going on. Thank you.
SY, thanks for the note. I’m an Israeli and an American. And still, everyone I know here in Israel have been watching the news from the Boston area and sending their prayers. Alden
Thanks Alden. Your prayers are always eloqent and speak directly to the heart. This has been a very difficult week here in the states. best, lori
Lori, blessings. Many people here have connections in the Boston area. Lots of love, prayers and blessings are headed to the U.S. from Israel. Alden
HI,
I will be reciting your prayer “The Last Moment” when leading a shiva service tomorrow evening. I believe there might be a typographical error in the prayer as printed. Line 7 reads, “The last to chance feel.” Is it supposed to be, “The last chance to feel”? Perhaps not. Just thought I would mention it.
I also read your prayer “Your Name,” giving appropriate credit of course, at the opening of a congregational meeting a a way to help ‘center’ those who came to do the business of the temple: to remind them what connected us a temple members.
Thank you.
Thanks for pointing out the error. I appreciate it.
I hope your congregational meeting goes well and that the mourners and others at the shiva find comfort in your words and my meditation.
Alden
Thank you for your beautiful prayers and web site. I would like to share 2 of your prayers for Yamim Noraim as I co lead Shabbat services on Friday night after Rosh Hashanah. I will of course give you credit and will also ask our facebook editor to put a link to this sight as I believe all of our congregants would appreciate it and get inspiration and comfort from your poems, etc. Wishing you a Shanah Tovah .
Thank you for your kind words about my prayers. I appreciate the link. What synagogue is it? I’ll be sure to ‘like’ the page. If you’re reading them out loud, we’re set. If you’d like to print them in a handout of some kind, I’ll need to send you a permission email. Just email to me the names of the prayers and the number you’ll be printing. Thanks. Either way, I’d love to know which prayers caught your attention. Shana tova, Alden
I am wanting to clarify your permission, I would like to post your prayer gift on my blog with my sister’s name inserted. I can do that as long as I include the copy right line and a link to your blog. Is that correct?
Hi Jenny,
I’ve never had this question before, so let me think about it. I’m also not quite sure which prayer you are talking about. Can you tell me the full name of the prayer?
Alden
Alden,
Your prayers, email list and your website are all such a gift. Lately I am continually moved by your subjects, liturgy, spiritual activism. When I read your liturgy-poems, “I feel like my prayers are marching” (to rephrase the famous quote from Heschel). And I breathe with more hope. Thank you!
Riqi,
Thanks for your kind words and your ongoing support. They are a blessing and a gift to me.
Thank you for your powerful prayers. I would like to read “After the Horror” at part of a service on April 24, 2016. I am a retired Unitarian Universalist minister and will be doing a service that Sunday as a guest minister in a UU congregation in Clemson SC. It is not only meaningful for Yom h’Shoah, but for the atrocities taking place daily.
Thank you, Dillman
I facilitate labyrinth walks at my church and each walk has a theme. I produce a leaflet abut the theme with a few prayers for the participants. I would appreciate it if you would allow me to use portions of “Receiving Blessings” and “Grouchy, a Love Prayer” in our upcoming walk with the theme “Opening the Heart”. Your prayers are very meaningful. Thank you. Margaret
I sent you an email. It sounds like a lovely way to pray.
Hello! I’m on the pastoral team of the St. Giles Family Mass, in Oak Park, IL. We are hosting a candle-light vigil this Thursday evening in support of still-separated immigrant families. Congregants and clergy from every faith tradition in our area have been invited to join us. We would really like to include your beautiful prayer “For Children at our Borders” that we found on “reformjudaism.org”. If you agree, it would be printed (exactly as written, with attribution and a link to “To Bend Light”) in the ‘worship aid’ that will be given to everyone who attends. May we have your permission? –
Dear Alden,
I would like to recite “For the Matriarch” at my mother’s memorial service on September 2. It was the most perfect poem I could find for my Christian and Southern mother. Some things are universal, like G-d.
Kelly
Dear Kelly,
Thank you for your kind words about “For the Matriarch.” There is another version, slightly modified, called “In Memoriam, Our Matriarch.” Here’s a link: https://tobendlight.com/2018/03/in-memoriam-our-matriarch/. Please feel free to read either out loud at the service. If you’d like to distribute copies, please send me an email and I will give you a permissions letter that explains how the copyright line needs to appear.
May you find comfort in your memories.
Alden
Hello. I would like to include your prayer for victims of tornadoes in my church bulletin, St. Matthew Catholic Church. Would you please permit this one time use for approximately 100 copies. Thank you.
I’ll send you an email response.
Respected Alden,
We need your formal permission to use your logo for “Promotion of Public Awareness regarding Organ Donation in India. We have setup NGO with name v4organs foundation.
Me (68) and my wife (62) have chosen this as our life mission, for which we work 24X7. We have team of 10 volunteers and work in two metropolitan cities Mumbai & Bengaluru. We have attended Transplant Coordinators Training program organised by Regulators for Organ Doantion.
Shrikant Apte & Neela Apte
Hello,
Blessings on your work.
What are you asking permission for?
I am seeking permission to use your poem Sing With Liberty: Psalm of Protest 15 in our upcoming Sisterhood Shabbat service on March 6, 2020. I would like to be able to include the poem in our service handout so that congregants can join in on the reciting of your poem. The subject of our Sisterhood Shabbat is Ner Tamid and challenging the darkness in this world. Your beautiful poem is right on point with what we will be discussing during our d’var.
Thank you.
Rena
Sisterhood of Central Synagogue-Beth Emeth
Re: SHOAH MEMORIAL PRAYER”
To “perish?” 6 million MURDERED in the Shoah.
Definition of “perish” (just found on The Free Dictionary by FARLEX) ..”expire, shrivel, rot, vanish… to die or be destroyed… to pass from existence, disappear gradually.”
We’re not speaking of souls on the Titanic, nor livestock in a blizzard. No perfumed poetry can disguise the the madness and hatred of the of the Jew killers. MURDERED… the Jews and other undesirables of Europe were.
Dispense with the flowery song. Save it for tossing on the blood soaked ground… over grown, forgotten, lost to history. Thank God for Yehuda Bauer. Might, for next time read: “The Death of the Shtetl,” (2010). Among others.
Perhaps writing a poem for the Shoah, it should cut like glass shards… making our souls and tongues bleed. What do you think?
(No, I’m not mad. I do admire your work whenever I come across it. But “remembering” the Shoah, for me, has to be a punch in the gut. No pain… leads to forgetfulness. Perish the thought.)
I hear your passion.
Having stood on a roof in Jerusalem this morning with students at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, standing silently for two minutes as the national siren went off, as people stopped their cars and then got out to stand by them, we already had that wake-up gut-punch. The moment after — in which I read this very piece — called for a remembrance that allowed everyone there to have their own experience, sit with their own thoughts, from those who are first generation children of survivors, to those who are young witnesses. This piece brought more tears to many eyes.
That is all to say, there are moments for words that comfort and heal, and there are moments for harder edges, as well. Yes, with respect to our shared deep desire that we never forget, we also deserve some healing, some balm of comfort, at times, too.
If I wish to add a prayer to a Sefaria sheet, is that included under your guidelines for blogs and websites re attributions, or would you prefer that I seek permission each time?
For this one in particular I would like to use Things Break, but I imagine I will want to reference more of your writing in the future.
Thanks for your time!
Thanks for the inquiry. I sent you a direct email response. And thanks for your interest in my work.