On the Eighth Day of Christmas

Stained glass window from the Cathedral in Chartres

Dear God, this past year has been filled with great challenges. Fear and insecurity are our companions day and night. We pray that you shelter us beneath the shadow of your wings and protect us from all harm. Remove the evil forces that surround us and spread over us your shelter of peace.

In this past year we have been reminded that prejudice still thrives beneath the surface of our society. Grant us that vision to see that we are all your children, that Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i and so many others are all threads to one magnificent tapestry of life. Nurture our hearts to recognize the good in all people
and plant within us the courage to fight against even the most subtle forms of prejudice wherever they are found.

In this past year we have been shaken by the moral failures of our political, business and religious leaders. Give us the honesty to do a personal accounting and to seek to improve ourselves, and to shape a society built on a solid foundation of ethics.

May it be your will to renew our lives in the coming year. Grant us a life with goodness and vitality, a life informed by purity and piety, a life free from shame and reproach, a life of abundance and honor, a life in which our heat’s desire for goodness will be fulfilled.

Amen.

– Rabbi Stephen Weiss