Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Friends,

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We still need a few more people to join our Temple Sinai team of volunteers who will be going with Nechama this Sunday to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy.  Please contact Matt Libien at  demott50@yahoo.com or cell 2017882077.

For those interested in making their Thanksgiving celebration more than an exercise in exercising their mandibular muscles, below please find a Thanksgiving prayer that I will be bringing to my family’s celebration this afternoon.  Below that is the “Prayer for the State of Israel” and links to other prayers for Israel and for peace, so appropriate at this time.  May the cease fire that began yesterday hold and, “May the One who brings peace to the high heavens, bring peace to us, to all Israel and all the world.”  Amen.

A Thanksgiving Prayer

By Rabbi Naomi Levy 

Found at  www.ritualwell.org

For the laughter of the children,

For my own life breath,

For the abundance of food on this table,

For the ones who prepared this sumptuous feast,

For the roof over our heads,

The clothes on our backs,

For our health,

And our wealth of blessings,

For this opportunity to celebrate with family and friends,

For the freedom to pray these words

Without fear,

In any language,

In any faith,

In this great country,

Whose landscape is as vast and beautiful as her inhabitants.

Thank You, God, for giving us all these. Amen.

[From TALKING TO GOD: Personal Prayers for Times of Joy, Sadness, Struggle, and Celebration (Alfred A. Knopf, New York)]

 

Prayer for the State of Israel (authorship is generally credited to Nobel Prize Laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon)

Our Father in Heaven, Rock and Redeemer of the people Israel; Bless the State of Israel, with its promise of redemption. Shield it with Your love; spread over it the shelter of Your peace. Guide its leaders and advisors with Your light and Your truth. Help them with Your good counsel. Strengthen the hands of those who defend our Holy Land. Deliver them; crown their efforts with triumph. Bless the land with peace, and its inhabitants with lasting joy. And let us say: Amen.

For Prayers for Peace at this time see:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.jstreet.org/images/Prayer_for_Peace_in_a_Time_of_War_ASklover_final2.pdf

http://blogs.rj.org/blog/2012/11/15/prayers-for-peace-in-the-middle-east/

L’Shalom,
Rabbi Jordan Millstein