Renew Our Days as of Old
A #ShowUpForShabbat Prayer
Shabbat Bereishit - Genesis, 27 Tishrei, 5780 - October 25-26, 2019
Rabbi Noam E. Marans – AJC Director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations
Download a printable version of this prayer.
From the depths we cry out to You1, dear God, for You are with us in our straits.2
Hear the blood of our brothers and sisters as they shout out to us, to You, from the ground.3
A year has passed, but the pain subsists. We are not the same.
Dear Pittsburgh, we are with you in your sorrow. We are responsible one for the other.4
Comfort the mourners who grieve the loss of their loved ones, their friends, those who unite to establish synagogues for prayer and those who enter them to pray.5
Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal. May our memory of them be for a blessing.
Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger. May our memory of them be for a blessing.
God, Creator, brighten us with the light of the First Day and dispel this darkness.6
Renew within us our Divine image of the Sixth Day, which fashioned and governs our humanity.7
Teach us to banish evil and know good, our distinction from the beasts, acquired in the Garden of Eden.8
Care for the wounded of body and spirit. Enable them, us, to heal and regenerate as Adam and Eve did in the face of unbearable loss.9
Restore the American Jewish innocence lost, that America could be different, that America will be different. Mend our fractured nation.
Bless those who did not stand idly by while their neighbor’s blood was shed, who ran towards and not away.10
Bless those who showed up for Shabbat, now and then. Their presence allows the good of the many to prevail over the evil of the few.
Yea, though we walked through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for Thou art with us.11
Renew our days as of old. 12
1 Psalms 130:1
2 Psalms 91:15
3 Genesis 4:10
4 Shevuot 39b
5 Shabbat prayer book
6 Genesis 1:2-4
7 Genesis 1:27
8 Genesis 2-3
9 Genesis 4:24
10 Leviticus 19:16
11 Psalms 23:4
12 Lamentations 5:21