Prayer for the Children of Abraham / Ibrahim

by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

As a mother, as a human being, as a Jew, and as a rabbi, this prayer/poem is the best articulation I can offer of what my heart and soul are feeling right now. I pray for God to heal the hearts of all who suffer: Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and non-Jews, “us” and “them,” combatants on both sides, those who fear on both sides, those who mourn on both sides, those who benefit from the existing systems in place and those who struggle within those systems. Please, God, speedily and soon.

All are welcome to share and to use this prayer in your community if it speaks to you, as long as you preserve its origin/attribution. A PDF file is available for download, if that’s helpful.

This prayer is meant to be prayed in community as a responsive reading.

For every aspiring ballerina huddled
scared in a basement bomb shelter

For every toddler in his mother’s arms
    behind rubble of concrete and rebar

For every child who’s learned to distinguish
“our” bombs from “their” bombs by sound

For everyone wounded, cowering, frightened
    and everyone furious, planning for vengeance

For the ones who are tasked with firing shells
where there are grandmothers and infants

For the ones who fix a rocket’s parabola
    toward children on school playgrounds

For every official who sees shelling Gaza
as a matter of “cutting the grass”

And every official who approves launching projectiles
    from behind preschools or prayer places

For every kid taught to lob a bomb with pride
And every kid sickened by explosions

  For every teenager who considers
    “martyrdom” his best hope for a future:

May the God of compassion and the God of mercy
God of justice and God of forgiveness

God Who shaped creation in Her tender womb
    and nurses us each day with blessing

God Who suffers the anxiety and pain
of each of His unique children

God Who yearns for us to take up
    the work of perfecting creation

God Who is reflected in those who fight
and in those who bandage the bleeding –

May our Father, Mother, Beloved, Creator
    cradle every hurting heart in caring hands.

Soon may we hear in the hills of Judah
and the streets of Jerusalem

in the olive groves of the West Bank
    and the apartment blocks of Gaza City

in the kibbutz fields of the Negev
and the neighborhoods of Nablus

the voice of fighters who have traded weapons
    for books and ploughs and bread ovens

the voice of children on swings and on slides
singing nonsense songs, unafraid

the voice of reconciliation and new beginnings
    in our day, speedily and soon.

And let us say:

amen.

Notes:

• On “every aspiring ballerina huddled,” see Twenty minutes in a Tel Aviv bomb shelter, Jewschool.
• On children distinguishing bombs by sound, see A message to Israel’s leaders: Don’t defend me – not like this, Ha’aretz.
• On “mowing the grass,” see Israel, Gaza, and the patterns of the past, Washington Post.
• On “projectiles / from behind preschools or prayer places,” see Dealing with Hamas’s human shield tactics, Jerusalem Post.
• “Soon may we hear…” is a reference to the final blessing in the set of Sheva Brachot / Seven Blessings recited at every Jewish wedding.

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat was ordained by ALEPH in 2011. Author of 70 Faces (Phoenicia, 2011), a collection of Torah poems, she serves Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams, MA.

Originally posted at Velveteen Rabbi