Our people came out of Egypt a mixed multitude, the spray of dividing waters sparkling diamonds all around them.
We stood together at SinaiAccording to the Torah, God, in the presence of the Jewish people, gave Moses the Torah on Mount Sinai (Har Sinai)., all of us—future, present, past—amid the rumble of thunder and the crack of bright lightning, to enter into covenant with the One who loves us, in whose shining image we are all created, over and over again.
We have wandered bleak landscapes, built flimsy tents of skins and then houses of stone. We have planted orchards and vineyards, seen two Temples rise and then go down in surging flames, forcing us into exile. We have loved and lost, grieved and danced, transgressed and celebrated. Hidden, suffered, thrived.
And we gather here this day, in the community of our people, a mixed multitude, and we sing out: Hear O IsraelLit. ''the one who struggles with God.'' Israel means many things. It is first used with reference to Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel (Genesis 32:29), the one who struggles with God. Jacob's children, the Jewish people, become B'nai Israel, the children of Israel. The name also refers to the land of Israel and the State of Israel., we stand together, all of us, descendants of the single first human created on the sixth day, and of our myriad parents down through the generations, too numerous to name. We stand together, link arms, and pray.
Blessed are You, God of the universe, who sanctifies us with the commandment to love ourselves and one another—in all our varied ways—and blesses us with a diamond-bright radiance that still ripples out from Your first spoken words of creation.
“For LGBTQIQ People,” Copyright © 2008 by Andrew Ramer, Siddur Sha’ar Zahav, page 88
Excerpted from SiddurLit. Order of prayers. The prayer book. Sha’ar Zahav. Copyright © 2009, Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco, CA, reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. http://shaarzahav.org.
