| Tuesday Prayer |
| Dearest God, We stand before you because we must. We stand before You because truths that should be self-evident are not so evident in our country. And so we turn to you to breathe ever more of Your Spirit into us because we find we cannot breathe, the arms of armed forces wrapped around our throats when we call out for justice. We call to you in defiance of a national system that betrays our noble ideals, where tanks and blood fill our streets, where every Black man, woman, and child is twenty times likelier to be killed by police. We shout to the Heavens with one, unified voice: Black. Lives. Matter. We are called by scripture to pray for the day when we will beat swords into plowshares and study war no more, when the surplus of war led by greed and deception will not spill into our streets, where swords and tanks and rubber bullets and tear gas will be beaten thinner and thinner, the iron of hatred vanishing forever. We pray to you because, as our prophets have taught us: human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. We call to you, O God, because Your Image was abandoned on rainy concrete for 4 and a half hours. We call to you, O God, because Your Spirit was choked out of a father who called out 11 times’ “I can’t breathe.” We raise our hands to you, knowing that the work is ours to do, black, white, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, young, old, gay, straight – These are your images, battered By those sworn to protect and serve. We are all responsible for what happens next. And so we pray to You, Source of Life, raise up our eyes to see You in each other’s eyes, to take risks for justice, to bring through our unified prayer today more Love and Compassion into the world. Ignite us to combat the hidden prejudice which causes police to open fire in fear, which transforms a child in a hoodie into a hoodlum, a person into a threat. We pray today not for calm but for righteousness to flow like a mighty river, until peace fills the earth as the waters fill the sea. Comfort the families of all who grieve. Strengthen us to work for a world redeemed. And we say together: Amen. Inspired by Yehudah Amichai z”l and Rabbi Rachel Barenblat |
