Prayers and Blessings Search

It is Jewish custom to bless children each Shabbat and on every festival holiday. The customary blessing that parents bestow on their children on Shabbat and holidays is specific to boys and girls. The blessing offered here is appropriate for people of all genders, including nonbinary genders. You may choose

The candles are lit before the blessing is recited.

In remembrance of the countless Black Americans we have lost to racist violence, we are again asking our friends and allies in the Jewish community—Jews of Color and White Jews, Sephardic and Mizrachi and Ashkenasi, religious and secular, at home, in shul, or on Zoom—to recite a Kaddish for Black Lives during this Shabbat.

As an Israeli-American, I hold sorrow and fear for both my nations, and all the earth. This is a prayer for G-d to restore peace and justice to our world. The photo, which I took from Israel last fall, is a peaceful sunset over Gaza.

Blessing over the wine for the festival of Shavuot, Sunday through Thursday.

After a moment of joy and relief at the guilty verdicts in the murder of George Floyd, my overwhelming emotion is sorrow in my heart for a daughter without her father and a brother without his brother. This is a prayer for justice and healing. My anger and indignation were already expressed in “Strangled by Police: Psalm of Protest 17” which is added here to create a two-prayer liturgy. Both pieces refer to Amos 5:24, envisioning a time when justice will flow as water.

A prayer for Shabbat Tzedek – a Shabbat of Justice – in connection with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend.

This is a prayer in response to the rioting and attacks on the U.S. Capitol, an attack on the great history of the peaceful transition power in the United States of America.

Every inch of America is sacred, from sea to shining sea. There is much to be done in our time, the sort of hard work on which God smiles because it is done for the sake of the dignity and well-being of all God’s creatures. Together, let us work to