"Blessed are you, Holy One, sovereign of all worlds, who has created such as this."
Baruch atah Adonai
Eloheynu melech ha'olam
shekacha lo b'olamo
Eloheynu melech ha'olam
shekacha lo b'olamo
(This reminds me of wonderful lines from Fiddler on the Roof: a villager asks the rabbi, who has just proclaimed that there is a blessing for EVERYTHING, "So is there a blessing from the Czar?" "Certainly," says the Rabbi, and he intones, "May God Bless and keep the Czar, far, far away from here!")
"Blessed are you, Holy One, sovereign of all worlds, who has created such as this."
What a wonderful prayer for life's odd moments!
A prayer, I presume for those moments of awe, such as the one I had this evening when I went out to my garden and found the last sun's rays in an otherwise darkly clouded sky had bathed the world in yellow light. "Blessed are you, Holy One, sovereign of all worlds, who has created such as this."
And perhaps for those moments when you are perplexed, as in, I don't know what that meant, or where we're heading, but it is beautiful....
And also, most profoundly, for those moments when you have come to terms with some awful thing, so that you are ready to bless it, not too extravagantly, but as a part of all that is your life. I remember coming to that place after my cancer diagnosis. Sometime in the last few days before surgery, after I'd had a month to adjust to the whole shocking, terrible business, I found that I no longer wanted to hate these wayward and dangerous cells or try to will them dead. That would have been the right blessing for that moment, too.
"Blessed are you, Holy One, sovereign of all worlds, who has created such as this."
I passed my 10 year anniversary of that cancer diagnosis last Spring. Now that all has turned out well, and I see the many blessings that era brought me, I can be more extravagant. It changed so much (and almost all for the better) that I must be grateful.
Unitarian Universalism has a prayer like this, in the form of a hymn: "For all that is our life, we come with thanks and praise, for all life is a gift, which we are bound to use, to serve the common good, and make our own life glad."
"Blessed are you, Holy One, sovereign of all worlds, who has created such as this."
What a wonderful prayer for life's odd moments!
A prayer, I presume for those moments of awe, such as the one I had this evening when I went out to my garden and found the last sun's rays in an otherwise darkly clouded sky had bathed the world in yellow light. "Blessed are you, Holy One, sovereign of all worlds, who has created such as this."
And perhaps for those moments when you are perplexed, as in, I don't know what that meant, or where we're heading, but it is beautiful....
And also, most profoundly, for those moments when you have come to terms with some awful thing, so that you are ready to bless it, not too extravagantly, but as a part of all that is your life. I remember coming to that place after my cancer diagnosis. Sometime in the last few days before surgery, after I'd had a month to adjust to the whole shocking, terrible business, I found that I no longer wanted to hate these wayward and dangerous cells or try to will them dead. That would have been the right blessing for that moment, too.
"Blessed are you, Holy One, sovereign of all worlds, who has created such as this."
I passed my 10 year anniversary of that cancer diagnosis last Spring. Now that all has turned out well, and I see the many blessings that era brought me, I can be more extravagant. It changed so much (and almost all for the better) that I must be grateful.
Unitarian Universalism has a prayer like this, in the form of a hymn: "For all that is our life, we come with thanks and praise, for all life is a gift, which we are bound to use, to serve the common good, and make our own life glad."
2 comments:
Y’varekh’kha ADONAI v’yishmerekha. Ya’er ADONAI panav eleikha vichunekka. Yissa ADONAI panav eleikha v’yasem l’kha shalom.
The Aaronic Blessing, Numbers 6:24-26
The Lord bless you, and keep you
The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious toward you
The Lord lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace.
Recording:
http://fp.thebeers.f9.co.uk/Audio/AaronicBlessing.wav
It's one of the few Hebrew prayers I have memorized. I studied it, with the thought that it might be useful for me in comforting someone else. But I have found it to give me great comfort.
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