A Prayer for the Paris Jewish Community
(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Oy, God.
It hurts so very much.
Yet again.
We lift up our eyes to the mountains,
to the heavens,
and we ask with pain and fear
and determined, indefatigable hope:
how long, Adonai, how long.
Knowing Your love is abundant,
compels us see this fragile world
all deeply incomplete.
Why must it take so long for us to learn?
How can Your images,
every human being,
do such horrid things,
hating each other,
hurting each other,
killing each other?
Dear God. this hurt we know too well
has taught us to stand strong through our pain.
We will not cease our prayers, and...
...we also know that we are called,
as Your children, to take leaps of action
and to turn our pain into a clarion call:
Never Again.
That is the prayer of our bodies,
writhing in pain as we watch our sisters and brothers,
children of the House of Israel,
trapped, hurt, killed,
In a kosher supermarket in Paris.
Shopping for Shabbat is not meant to be an act of bravery,
and we call out to You in our anger and fear:
strengthen us to build this world from Your Holy Love, God.
Remind us, even today, especially in Paris today,
that we are capable of this miracle.
The world as a whole needs this message:
Love. Always. Wins.
Source of every breath,
we know that if breath is trapped in our throats,
as we witness terror for Jews and all who cherish life,
You are there too.
Dear God,
hold our hands as we pray with our bodies,
as we mourn those cut down and champion the lives of every Divine Image.
May this broken world of ours
see no more of this
and be blessed by Peace.
Amen.
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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
▶menachemcreditor.org ▶netivotshalom.org
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