amen? a prayer for more than thoughts and prayers
© rabbi menachem creditor
chair, rabbis against gun violence
Compassionate One,
we beg of You:
awaken us from the cruelty of dispassion.
17 souls ripped from this world yesterday
for the crime of being born in America,
today’s America, a country whose ongoing trauma
is fueled by greed for profit and the poverty of our national
soul.
Our children, our precious children...
"No home was without its dead,"
we read in the Torah,
when the firstborns of a sinful nation were lost.
Our children, our precious children...
They matter less to our leaders
than automatic weapons and bump-stocks.
We have sinned;
the hot blood of our dead children
is on our hands.
oh, our children,
felled, bloodied by worshipped bullets,
national (bought) numbness,
developmental anger, teenage alienation,
armed by a free, uncaring market,
cowardly politicians,
cultural weapon-fetish.
There is only one way to repent:
we must save our children
from our sins
before…
[Oh God…]
before…
[GodForbidAMillionTimes]
Dear God…
Please…
[amen?]
