PRAYER FOR OUR NATION
By Stan Schroeder

The following prayer was written/translated by Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, esteemed professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and included in many Conservative Shabbat services. It is particularly relevant during these months leading to our presidential election.

Our God and God of our ancestors: We ask Your blessings for our country, for its government, for its leader and advisors, and for all who exercise just and rightful authority. Teach them insights of Your Torah, that they may administer all affairs of state fairly, that peace and security, happiness and prosperity, justice and freedom may forever abide in our midst.

Creator of all flesh, bless all the inhabitants of our country with Your spirit. May citizens of all races and creeds forge a common bond in true harmony to banish all hatred and bigotry and to safeguard the ideals and free institutions which are the pride and glory of our country.

May this land under Your Providence be an influence for good throughout the world, uniting all people in peace and freedom and helping them to fulfill the vision of Your prophet: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they experience war any more." And let us say: Amen.

As we read and affirm this prayer let us give thanks that we live in a free country basically dedicated to the ideals stated. And let us also pray that policies, not politics, guide our candidates in the upcoming campaign.

BOARD MEETING DVAR TORAH (PARSHA DEVARIM)

This section of the Torah is very rich in thought provoking ideas – full of narratives and descriptions and proscriptions which could keep rabbis and lay people discussing, interpreting and arguing for years – as I am sure it has.

It comes at the end of the fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, and is basically Moses’ summary of the forty years of wandering from Egypt up to the borders of the Promised Land, Canaan. Like other lists of the Torah, it can be pretty dry reading. I’ll give you a little from the middle: "And they journeyed from Libnah, and pitched in Rissah. And they journeyed from Rissah, and pitched in Kehelah. And they journeyed from Kehelah…." You get the idea. All in all, there are 42 stations on this AAA route Moses and his people followed. But then comes something else. Something very different.

Right in the middle of the recitation of these pitches and journeys he stops to talk about the death of Aaron, his brother. We are told where he died: Mount Hor, when: on the first day of the fifth month of the fortieth year of the journey, how old he was: one hundred and twenty years. It is a very personal note – a passing of not only his brother, but of one of the original leaders of the old generation, the one that got the people out of Egypt. With this little side note of Aaron’s death, Moses has made the epic journey a very personal and human one. He is now virtually the only old man at the edge of the New World. This is further emphasized when in the very next line after the noting of the Aaron’s death Moses comments "And the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who dwelt in the South in the land of Canaan heard of the coming of the children of Israel." Arad will be the first king to be conquered by the Israelites, but not with Moses, as we know.

Then the litany of names continues. But now the feeling is not these were the places we stopped on our journey from Egypt, rather, with the mention of Arad’s awareness of their coming, these are the places we stopped as we traveled to Canaan.

With the noting of the passing of his brother and the look forward to the coming battles in Canaan which will be Joshua’s responsibility, not his, Moses recognizes that his time is almost over. But, with these words he had made the heroic forty year journey of his people a very personal and human story. The story of his life journey.

But it is not only the story of the Jewish people and the story of Moses – it is our personal story also – just as the initial Exodus from Egypt is our story. As we say every Passover, "It was not only our ancestors that the Holy One redeemed – us too, the living, God redeemed with them." So too, is the entire forty year experience – the sacrifices of the first generation, the creation and strengthening of a former dependent population, the teaching of the next generation who will continue the work in the new land, and, finally, the passing of the mantle of power and authority. Sound familiar? This is the story of every family. And thus the epic story of Moses becomes even more personal – not only for him, but us too, the living.

Owen Delman