Mother’s Prayer for Peace
Written in 2014, in response to the latest cycle of violence in the Middle East, by Sheikha Ibtisam Mahamid and Rabbi Tamar Elad Appelbaum – two religious leaders, Palestinian and Israeli, who are mothers and lovers of peace. They invite us to recite the prayer along with the lighting of candles every friday – the sacred day for both Muslims and Jews, and every time we come together to pray for peace.
English translation by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie
בואו נאיר נרות שלום שתי אמהות ובקשה אחת: שדווקא עכשיו, בימי הבכייה הגדולה האלה, בימים המקודשים לדתות שלנו, בשישי ובערב שבת, נדליק בכל בית נר לשלום:
נר שמבקש פני עתיד, פני אדם. נר שצולח גבולות ואימה. מבתי המשפחות ומבתי התפילה שלנו נאיר זה לזה והנרות יהיו מגדלור לרוחנו עד שנבוא אל היכל השלום.
מלך חפץ בחיים
הרופא לשבורי לב
ומחבש לעצבותם
שמע נא תפילת אמהות
שאתה לא בראתנו על מנת שנהרוג זה בזה
ולא על מנת שנחיה בפחד, כעס ושנאה בעולמך
אלא על מנת
שנדע לתת רשות זה לזה
לקיים את שמך
שם חיים,
שם שלום בעולם.
על אלה אני בוכיה
עיני עיני יורדה מים
על ילדים בוכים מפחד בלילות
על הורים אוחזים עולליהם וייאוש ואפלה בלבם
על שער אשר נסגר
ומי יקום ויפתחהו
טרם פנה יום.
ובדמעות ובתפלות
שאני מתפללת כל הזמן
ובדמעות כל הנשים
שכואבות את הכאב החזק בזמן הקשה הזה
הריני מרימה את ידיי למעלה אנא ממך אדוני
רחם עלינו
שמע קולנו ה׳ אלהינו
בימי הרעה האלה
שלא נתייאש
ונראה חיים זה בזה
ונרחם זה על זה
ונצטער זה על זה
ונקווה לזה לזה
ונכתוב את חיינו בספר החיים
למענך אלהים חיים.
תן שנבחר בחיים.
כי אתה שלום
וביתך שלום
וכל אשר לך שלום
וכן יהי רצון
ונאמר אמן.
تعالوا نضيئ شمعات السلام
امةٌ واحدة وطلب واحد:
خصوصاً الان, في هذه
الايام, ايام البكاء الكبري,
في الايام المقدسةلديانتينا,
في يوم الجمعة ومساء
السبت, نضيئ في كل بيت
شمعة للسلام : شمعة تطالب
بوجه المستقبل, ووجه
الانسان. شمعة تنتصر على
الحدود والرعب من بيوت
عائلاتنا وبيوت صلواتنا ،
نضيئ احدنا للآخر ،
والشموع تكون البروج الى
أرواحنا حتى نصل لمعبد
السالم. ابتسام محاميد متار
العاد-اپلباوم
الله يريد الحياة
الله هو الطبيب
الذي يُشفي
القلوب الحزينة
والمتألمة
استمع لو سمحت الى
صلاة الأمهات
لأنك لم تخلقنا
لكي نقتل بعضنا
بعضاً وليس لكي
نعيش بحالة من
الخوف, الغضب
والكراهية في
عالمك هذا
بل لكي نسمح
لبعضنا البعض
أن نذكر أسمك
اسم الحياة, اسم
السلام في العالم.
على جميع
هؤلاء أنا أبكي
دوماً أبكي خوفاً على
الأطفال في
الليالي على الآباء الذين
يحملون أطفالهم
الصغار واليأس
والظلام في قلوبهم
على البوابة التي
أغلقت والتي لا
نعرف من
سوف يقوم بفتحها قبل
انتهاء اليوم وبالدموع
والصلوات التي
أصليها طيلة
الوقت وبدموع النساء
اللواتي يشعرن
بهذا الألم القوي
في هذه الأوقات
العصيبة ها أنا أرفع يدي
اليك يا ربي أن
ترحمنا لنعيش مع
بعضنا البعض
ونشفق على
بعضنا البعض
ونواسي بعضنا
البعض ونأمل الخير
لبعضنا البعض
ولكي نكتب
قصة حياتنا في
كتاب الحياة
من أجلك يا اله
الحياة امنحنا أن نختار
الحياة
لأنك السلام
وبيتك السلام
وكل ما لديك
سلام
بإذن الله لنقل
آمين
Two mothers, one plea: Now, more than ever, during these days of so much crying, on days sacred to both our religions, let us light a candle in every home –
for peace.
A candle to illuminate our future,
face to face,
A candle across borders, beyond fear.
From our family homes and houses of worship Let us light each other up, Let these candles be a lighthouse to our spirit Until we all arrive at the sanctuary of peace.
God of Life
Who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds
May it be your will to hear the prayer of mothers
For you did not create us to kill
each other
Nor to live in fear, anger or hatred in your world
But rather you have created us so we can grant permission to one another
to sanctify
Your name of Life, your name of Peace in this world.
For these things I weep, my eye, my eye runs down with water
For our children crying at nights,
For parents holding their children with despair and darkness in their hearts
For a gate that is closing, and who will open it before the day has ended?
And with my tears and prayers
which I pray
And with the tears of all women who deeply feel the pain of these
difficult days
I raise my hands to you please God have mercy on us
Hear our voice that we shall
not despair
That we shall see life in each other,
That we shall have mercy for
each other,
That we shall have pity on each other,
That we shall hope for each other
And we shall write our lives in the book of Life
For your sake God of Life
Let us choose Life.
For you are Peace, your world is Peace and all that is yours is Peace,
And so shall be your will and let us say Amen.
Amanda Gorman, “Compass” (excerpt)
“Lost as we feel, there is no better
Compass than compassion.
We find ourselves not by being
The most seen, but the most seeing.”
Michael Zatz, “Illusion”
“Amazing
How everything looks
Unchanged,
Even
When nothing
Remains
The same.”
Written earlier this year, this poem is included in the new anthology Shiva: Poems of October 7, which is “not only a book of poetry, but an extension of the scroll of Lamentations.”
Mohamad Jamous, September 2024, Ramallah
Teach your children that life is full of hardships, challenges and tragedies.
Teach them to love the others.
Teach them that darkness will not triumph over light, and that unity is the secret to success.
Teach them to coexist, to corporate in telling stories and tales
Teach them that dignity, justice, freedom and peace are the right of every person on this planet.
Teach them that peace is possible and that humanity is the source of strength in human life
Adrienne Rich, “Natural Resources,” 1977
My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.
Mosab Abu Toha, Published in Out of Gaza, Anthology of New Palestinian Poetry, 2024
What is home:
it is the shade of trees on my way to school
before they were uprooted.
It is my grandparents’ black-and-white wedding photo
before the walls crumbled.
It is my uncle’s prayer rug,
where dozens of ants slept on wintry nights,
before it was looted and put in a museum.
It is the oven my mother used to bake bread and roast chicken
before a bomb reduced our house to ashes.
It is the cafe where I watched football matches and played –
My child stops me: Can a four-letter word hold all of these?
Kat Abdalah, “A Farm in Gaza”
My grandma had a farm in Gaza where
her children played outside. Only
her two oldest sons remember
living there.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza where
She took care of animals.
She milked goats
and rode donkeys.
She baked bread in a fire pit and
brewed maramiya
over crackling flames.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza where
she thought
she’d live peacefully
with her children and her husband.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza that
she left behind during the Six-Day War.
Her oldest son, just
eight years old, read the paper she signed
before they crossed the checkpoint. It said
if they wanted to leave safely that day,
they were never allowed to return.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza but
in Jordan she bought half-rotten fruit
from the market.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza and
when she lost it,
her sons,
just little boys, sold newspapers and ice cream
to make ends meet.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza and
when her oldest son
aged to sixty and went to America,
he bought a farm in Oregon to recreate
the only happy years of his life.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza but
in the haze of dementia,
our house in Northwest Washington
looked just like it.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza and
now she lies in a grave
overlooking the farmlands of Snohomish where
people raise cows and horses. Where people
brew instant coffee in cheap kettles and
buy bread from superstores.
My grandma had a farm in Gaza where
children don’t play outside anymore.
They play in hospitals and shelters,
and the dark circles around
their precious little eyes say that
the memories are haunting
and they will remember.
This piece is dedicated to Fatmeh Abujame, Kat’s beloved teta, who couldn’t read or write, but moved heaven and earth to make sure her children and grandchildren could.
Rachel Golberg Polin, “One Tiny Seed”, December 2023
There is a lullaby that says your mother will cry a thousand tears before you grow to be a man.
I have cried a million tears in the last 67 days.
We all have.
And I know that way over there
there’s another woman
who looks just like me
because we are all so very similar
and she has also been crying.
All those tears, a sea of tears
they all taste the same.
Can we take them
gather them up,
remove the salt
and pour them over our desert of despair
and plant one tiny seed.
A seed wrapped in fear,
trauma, pain,
war and hope
and see what grows?
Could it be
that this woman
so very like me
that she and I could be sitting together in 50 years
laughing without teeth
because we have drunk so much sweet tea together
and now we are so very old
and our faces are creased
like worn-out brown paper bags.
And our sons
have their own grandchildren
and our sons have long lives
One of them without an arm
But who needs two arms anyway?
Is it all a dream?
A fantasy? A prophecy?
One tiny seed.
Rabbi Elhanan Nir, included in the new anthology Shiva: Poems of October 7, February 2024
עַכְשָׁו כְּמוֹ אֲוִיר לִנְשִׁימָה
אֲנַחְנוּ צְרִיכִים תּוֹרָה חֲדָשָׁה.
עַכְשָׁו בְּתוֹךְ הָאֲוִיר שֶׁנִּגְמַר וְהַצַּוָּאר שֶׁנִּמְחַק
אֲנַחְנוּ צְרִיכִים מִשְׁנָה חֲדָשָׁה וּגְמָרָא חֲדָשָׁה
וְקַבָּלָה חֲדָשָׁה וַעֲלִיּוֹת נְשָׁמָה חֲדָשׁוֹת
וּבְתוֹךְ כָּל הַשֶּׁבֶר וְהַמֶּלַח וְהֶחָרָבָה, עַכְשָׁו
חֲסִידוּת חֲדָשָׁה וְצִיּוֹנוּת חֲדָשָׁה
וְהָרַב קוּק חָדָשׁ וּבְרֵנֶר חָדָשׁ
וְלֵאָה גּוֹלְדְּבֵּרְג חֲדָשָׁה וִיחַוֶּה דַּעַת חָדָשׁ
וְאָמָּנוּת חֲדָשָׁה וְשִׁירָה חֲדָשָׁה
וְסִפְרוּת חֲדָשָׁה וְקוֹלְנוֹעַ חָדָשׁ
וּמִלִּים חַדְתִּין-עֲתִיקִין
וּנְשָׁמוֹת חֲדָשׁוֹת-עַתִּיקוֹת מֵהָאוֹצָר,
וְאַהֲבָה חֲדָשָׁה מִתּוֹךְ הַבְּכִיָּה הַנּוֹרָאָה.
כִּי נִשְׁטַפְנוּ כֻּלָּנוּ בִּנְהָרוֹת רֵעִים וּבְאֵרִי
וְאֵין בָּנוּ הַר וְאֵין עוֹד לוּחוֹת
וְאֵין לָנוּ מֹשֶׁה וְאֵין בָּנוּ כּוֹחוֹת
וּבְיָדֵינוּ עַכְשָׁו הַכֹּל נִתָּן
Now We Need a New Torah,
Now like air to breathe
We need a new Torah.
We need a new Talmud, new
Kabbalah, new mystical ascents
And in all the brokenness and salt and ruin, now
A new Hasidism and a new Zionism
And new art and new poetry
And new literature and new cinema
And new-ancient words
And new-ancient souls from the treasure of souls.
And new love out of the terrible weeping.
And we have in us no mountain and there are no
more Tablets
And we have no Moses and we have no strength
And into our hands everything now has been given
Mahmoud Darwish
تقول: متى نلتقي
She said: when will we meet?
أقول: بعد عام و حرب
I said: A year after the war ends
تقول: متى تنتهي الحرب
She said: When will the war end?
أقول: حين نلتقي
I said: When we meet
Rabbi Amchai Lau-Lavie, “Tikkun Olam”
The hopeful, well-worn slogan “Tikkun Olam” feels different these difficult days, one year after the horrors of Oct. 7, as the violence and uncertainties persist. I vaguely knew that the origin of this phrase, often used to express Judaism’s hope in fixing the world, was linked to the moral dilemmas of freeing captives. But I didn’t fully grasp that our people have faced such heartbreaking challenges throughout history. I didn’t grasp that the original meaning of this call for repair was rooted in rupture.
During Roman times, the Talmudic sages sought to balance communal obligation to redeem every sacred soul held captive with the public responsibility — mipnei tikkun ha-olam — to avoid escalating ransom demands. Tikkun Olam originally referred to maintaining the system as a whole — tragically, sometimes at the cost of individual lives. Yet the law remains unresolved, recognizing that when loved ones are at stake, rules can bend.
Today, we confront this terrible reality, on a scale of sorrow and strife that strains the fabric of Israeli society and Jewish communities worldwide. How do we bring them home? How can we repair this rupture and co-create a better world?
Our sages taught us to navigate the tensions between law and love, firm policies and flexible compromises, to honor every life and the diversity of opinions. However we emerge from this tragic chapter, it must be done through respectful dialogue despite deep differences, as our tradition models. We must ensure the endurance of our community and humanity. We must reclaim, repair and reimagine what it really means to rebuild, together, a much safer, kinder and more hopeful world.
Published in JTA’s Supplement, ‘The Jewish texts that changed for me since Oct. 7’