From the Rabbi

A Prayer for the New Year
(based on a text by Rabbi Dan Wolpe)

Mekorenu Eloheynu/Our source, our God,

Over the last few months, there has been so much horror. A deep increase in acts of hatred, storms that are flooding and destroying cities and taking human life, fires that are devastating communities in this country, earthquakes, ongoing genocides.

We won’t pray for protection, for we know that tragedy hits both the good and the evil.

We won’t pray for miracles, for we believe that WE are the miracles that you send, and that it is up to us to be there for each other, near at hand and from afar.

We won’t ask that you heed our prayers, for our prayers are meant to spur us into action. If we pray for peace, and don’t work for peace, we have not prayed. If we pray for the safety of others but do nothing to insure their safety, we have not prayed. My prayers are worthless without action.

We WILL ask for understanding, that we may know the right path and the right actions.

We WILL ask for help to stay strong and be of good courage.

We WILL ask for help in always seeing the good in the world, in holding fast to the belief that all human beings were created in God’s image, and in being the best version of ourselves that we can.

We WILL ask for your inspiration to never lose the conviction that the world can change for the better and that any one of us can be a small part of that change.

For these things, Dear God, I will ask of you—not just for myself, but for all of humanity. May we know a year of hope, a year of justice, a year of wholeness.

Amen.

- Rabbi Liz