Temple News

            This week we will join together with our fellow Americans to celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving.  I hope we will all take some time to remember to give thanks this Thanksgiving.  The following prayer comes from our home prayerbook, On the Doorposts of Your House: Prayers and Ceremonies for the Jewish Home (CCAR Press), published by the Reform Movement.  It can be recited before eating the Thanksgiving meal.

Creative Source of all being, from You come our blessings from day to day and from year to year.  The towering mountains and the shaded forests, the abundant streams and the fruitful earth are Your gift to us.  May we preserve this gift for our children, that they, too, may give thanks for the blessings that will be theirs.

For this land so richly blessed, we raise our voice in thanks.  Your children have come to these shores from many lands in quest of liberty and new life.  Many have been pilgrims to this western world.  Here they found a safe haven, soil on which to prosper, and the opportunity to outgrow old fears and superstitions.  For our country, for its freedom promised, attained, and yet to be enlarged, for the richness of its natural blessings, and for a growing harmony that we pray will ever increase among its citizens, we give thanks.

God of justice and right, inspire all who dwell in our land with loyalty to the ideals of its founders.  Give us wisdom and strength to labor for its well-being, on the firm foundation of justice and truth.  Fill us with the spirit of kindness, generosity, and peace, that this land may be a beacon-light to many peoples.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!  Beteiavon!