Tikkun Olam

Blessed Yah, Creator, Created, Creating...

We pray for peace,

For ourselves and the world,

Even if only for one day:

Instead of anger, we choose kindness.

Instead of revenge, we choose justice.

Instead of resentment, we choose empathy.

Instead of work, we choose rest.

Instead of ideology, we choose compromise.

Instead of destruction, we choose community.

Instead of fear, we choose endurance.

Instead of invective, we choose prayer.

Instead of violence, we choose peace.

Blessed Yah, Creator, Created, Creating...

We give thanks for this day of peace.

May it change us, may it change the world,

And let us say, Amen.

Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu v'al kol Yisrael, v'al kol yoshvei teivel. 

V'imru amen. 

May the Source of peace, who creates peace in high places make peace for us, for our community and for all who dwell on earth. 

And let us say amen.

by Trisha Arlin

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

Blessed One-ness, Blessed Connection, 

Kadosh Baruch Hu:

We pray for all who are in pain

And all who cause pain.

We pray for those of us

Who are so angry

That we have lost compassion for the suffering

Of anyone who is not a member of our group.

And we pray for those of us

Who cannot see the suffering

Behind the loss of that compassion.

We pray for the strength

To resist the urge to inhumanity

That we feel in times of fear and mourning.

We pray for the courage

To resist the calls to inhumanity

That others may make upon us in times of crisis.

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

Blessed One-ness, Blessed Connection,

Kadosh Baruch Hu:

May we find relief from our hurts and fears

And may we not, in our pain,

Lose our empathy

For the hurts and fears of others.

We pray for all who are in pain

And all who cause pain.

Amen

Abraham Joshua Heschel. a rabbi who marched for civil rights alongside Martin Luther King, Jr

Wrote that morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings,

That indifference to evil is worse than evil itself

That in a free society, some are guilty but all are responsible

May we continue to practice tikkun olam, repairing the world

May we continue to practice, gemilut chasidim, acts of lovingkindness

May we continue to practice tzedakah, just giving

May we recognize that all beings are created equal, b'tzelem elohim, in the image of the divine

May we walk away today knowing that each of us has the power to create change.

by Deanna Neil