Here’s
a prayer written by Menachem Creditor in 2014. It was inspired by Yehudah
Amichai and Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, and written in memory of Mike Brown, Eric
Garner and many, many others. It was posted on the T’ruah website.
Black Lives Matter: A Prayer
Dearest
God,
We
stand before you because we must.
We
stand before You because
truths
that should be self-evident
are
not so evident in our country.
And
so we turn to you to breathe
ever
more of Your Spirit into us
because
we find we cannot breathe,
the
arms of armed forces wrapped around our throats
when
we call out for justice.
We
call to you in defiance of
of
a national system that betrays our noble ideals,
where
tanks and blood fill our streets,
where
every Black man, woman, and child is
twenty
times likelier to be killed by police.
We
shout to the Heavens with one, unified voice:
Black.
Lives. Matter.
We
are called by scripture to pray for the day when we will
beat
swords into plowshares and study war no more,
when
the surplus of war led by greed and deception
will
not spill into our streets,
where
swords and tanks and rubber bullets and tear gas
will
be beaten thinner and thinner,
the
iron of hatred vanishing forever.
We
pray to you because,
as
our prophets have taught us:
human
suffering anywhere
concerns
men and women everywhere.
We
call to you, O God,
because
Your Image
was
abandoned on rainy concrete for
4
and a half hours.
We
call to you, O God,
because
Your Spirit
was
choked out of a father who
called
out 11 times’ “I can’t breathe.”
We
raise our hands to you,
knowing
that the work is ours to do,
black,
white, Jewish, Christian, Muslim,
Hindu,
atheist, young, old, gay, straight –
These
are your images, battered
By
those sworn to protect and serve.
We
are all responsible for what happens next.
And
so we pray to You,
Source
of Life,
raise
up our eyes
to
see You in each other’s eyes,
to
take risks for justice,
to
bring through our unified prayer today
more
Love and Compassion into the world.
Ignite
us to combat the hidden prejudice
which
causes police to open fire in fear,
which
transforms a child in a hoodie
into
a hoodlum, a person into a threat.
We
pray today not for calm but for righteousness
to
flow like a mighty river, until
peace
fills the earth as the waters fill the sea.
Comfort
the families of all who grieve.
Strengthen
us to work for a world redeemed.
And
we say together: Amen.
~
written by Menachem Creditor in 2014; inspired by Yehudah Amichai and Rabbi
Rachel Barenblat. Posted on the T’ruah website. https://www.truah.org/resources/black-lives-matter-a-prayer/
