This Shabbat falls on that powerful week between Holocaust Memorial Day and Israel Independence Day. Made more powerful by world events, consider this prayer:
O Life and Hope, Holy One. Today we breathe a sigh.
A sigh of relief for the death of a violent and brutal man.
A sigh of resignation that the work and danger have not passed, only changed.
A sigh of hope that we may know peace. Peace.
We pray for peace.
More than the absence of violence, of terror, of danger, of bloodshed.
The presence of justice, kindness, forgiveness, and hope.
Peace for our nations. For weapons to be laid down.
For men and women to return home from the battle fields.
For us to learn the craft of war no more.
Peace for our world, for the places where hatred is bred,
where oppression and violence and extremism forge killers out of children.
Peace that is hope and tenderness and compassion,that is Shalom and well-being and goodness.
Peace that does not subdue violence, but renders it obsolete.
Peace for the dead, for all who died, civilians and soldiers,
Americans and allies and combatants and enemies.
Peace for those who died in towers and on planes,
in military operations and in bombings and raids and suicide attacks.
Peace and rest for those who have died.
Peace for loved ones who mourn:
for all who have lost a mother, father, son, daughter, sibling, spouse, friend.
For those who feel that the death of a man can bring long-awaited justice- peace.
For those who feel that adding to the dead cannot bring back the dead- peace.
For all who mourn and grieve and seek healing not in headlines and history,
but in the slow agony of living-peace.
Peace. Deep Peace. Your Peace.
And peace, the song says, must begin with us, with me.
As I take and live each moment in peace,
in hope for a better world,
in compassion and care for all around me.
Peace.
May it begin with me.
Received by Rabbi Hillel Cohn,
Excerpt of a prayer written by Rev. Becca Clark of Trinity United Methodist, and delivered by the author to Vermont's House of Representatives
Baruch Ata Adonai Elo-hei-nu me-lech ha-olam a-sher ke-d-sha-nu b- mitz-vo-tav, v-tzi-va-nu al s-fi-rat ha-omer.
Praised be you Adonai our God who rules the Universe instilling within us the holiness of mitzvot by commanding us to count the Omer.
Today is the seventeenth day of the Omer.