A prayer from Fringes’ founder Elliott batTzedek for the liberation of all of the captives: the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, the Palestinians in Gaza trapped and under attack day and night, and the Palestinian prisoners tried under military law and held, often without charges, in Israeli military prisons.
Download the prayer as a PDF here.
Prayer for the Liberation of the Captives
Elliott batTzedek / Fringes: a feminist, non-zionist havurah
We call out to the Force that made the Heavens and the Earth,
to the Source of Womb-Mercy, to the Power of Compassion.
We cry out, we plead for those taken captive, for the young
and for the old, for the parents and for the children,
for the 250 torn cruelly from their communities, dragged
from their homes, bound and carried off into a place
we can fear but cannot know.
אָנָּא יהוה הֹשִׂיעָה נָּא
Please, Nameless One, help us, please
אָנָּא יהוה הַצְלִיחָה נָּה
Please, Nameless One, support us, please
We call out to the Source of Loving-Kindness,
to the Dream of Tikkun Olam, for the two million
held captive between a fundamentalist movement
and a fundamentalist nation state, trapped between
homes turned to dust and the bombs that destroyed them,
the bombs that keep falling morning to evening, night
to day, trapped by the nation that has fenced them in,
denied them food, denied them water, denied medical care,
denied even the ability to call, to hear
the voices of their beloveds.
אָנָּא יהוה הֹשִׂיעָה נָּא
Please, Nameless One, help us, please
אָנָּא יהוה הַצְלִיחָה נָּה
Please, Nameless One, support us, please
To the Hidden One we turn, to the One Who Saw
Hajar in her despair, to the Fire That Does Not Consume,
to the Heat of Mid-day Light, pleading: Shine, shine over the walls,
shine through the bars, Shine on fifty-two-hundred locked in military cells.
Break, we beg, the indecency of “indefinite detention,”
bring law to people denied a state and then
imprisoned by an army as stateless. How often
were our ancestors bound like this in laws they had no say
in making and dare we turn to the one we call
God of our Ancestors while so many lives sit chained
and slipping past in our silence?
אֶשָּׂ֤א עֵינַי אֶל־הֶהָרִ֞ים מֵאְַיִן יָבֹ֜א עֶזְרִֽי:
We lift our eyes up above the mountains—
from where will our help come?
מִמַּעֲמַקִּ֝ים קְרָאתִ֤יךָ יְהֹוָֽה:
From these depths we call out—
who will listen, who will hear us?
We stand here, bewildered, bemoaning, strangers brought into
a community of necessity, a bond between all who believe in justice,
between all who yearn for a future we can bear to live in.
We stand though we shake, sharing the terror of the captives,
we stand though we crumple, horrified in our fear
of what goes on happening to them even as we stand.
Most of all we face the silence, the anguish,
of every beloved’s every endless hour after endless hour
waiting for the call that hasn’t come.
Source of Justice,
inspire us to be the voice calling loudly for what is just.
Maker of Creation,
teach our hands to create liberation.
Heart of Yearning,
pound into our chests the promise of redemption.
Liberator of the Captive,
empty the tunnels, tear down the walls,
open wide the gates
and You and You and You and You that add up to the whole of us—
break open your constricted hearts, spread wide your hands
once clenched in fear, unbend your knees, raise up your head,
lift your voice and sing:
We, We, We, now say no more
Not another generation must ever speak this prayer
We, We, We, say never again
Never again on this holy earth
Never again for anybody
Never again for anyone