May the One who blessed our common ancestor AbrahamAbraham is the first patriarch and the father of the Jewish people. He is the husband of Sarah and the father of Isaac and Ishmael. God's covenant - that we will be a great people and inherit the land of Israel - begins with Abraham and is marked by his circumcision, the first in Jewish history. His Hebrew name is Avraham. bless and heal his children.
May the descendants of Issac and Ishmael be granted the wisdom, strength and courage to gather again at the double cave called Machpelah, to fashion a just peace for all whose lives are inescapably intertwined, in TorahThe Five Books of Moses, and the foundation of all of Jewish life and lore. The Torah is considered the heart and soul of the Jewish people, and study of the Torah is a high mitzvah. The Torah itself a scroll that is hand lettered on parchment, elaborately dressed and decorated, and stored in a decorative ark. It is chanted aloud on Mondays, Thursdays, and Shabbat, according to a yearly cycle. Sometimes "Torah" is used as a colloquial term for Jewish learning and narrative in general. and still to this day.
May the One we praise daily for freeing the captive, now free the hostages of hatred, those brutally imprisoned their whole lives behind a fence, and those brutally dragged through that fence on October 7.
May we be granted the audacity to also plead, to scream, to act for the most unlikely miracle of all–that justice well up like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream so that all who dwell in the world can drink their fill of lovingkindness.
Let us pray with our minds and our hearts, with our hands and our feet, for a complete healing of our common humanity’s body and soul, a peace such as we have never known and must strain to imagine. Speedily, without delay.
