A prayer of fear, hope, and longing as Israel moves toward a ceasefire deal to bring hostages back home.
Loose the Angels of Peace God of eternity, I am afraid To allow hope Into my heart Or joy Into my soul.
How I long To see our hostages released. How I yearn For the captives to be redeemed. How I pray For the kidnapped to be free.
Prepare my heart To receive our loved ones, Released from the tunnels, With the fullness of compassion and joy, Even as You require that my heart Stay broken For those who remain in captivity And to mourn the lost.
God of history, Open the gates of freedom For the innocent. Wash away their pain With a river of healing. Wash away their nightmares With the secret light That You stored upon creation For the righteous.
Source and Shelter, Let loose the angels of peace. For certainly they, too, Must be held in captivity. Then, God of life, Hope will flow unbound, And songs of rejoicing Will shatter the heavens, When the words of the prophet Are fulfilled:
ויש־תקוה לאחריתך נאם־יהוה ושבו בנים לגבולם׃ And there is hope for your future, declares Adonai, Your children shall return to their country.
Alden Solovy spreads joy and excitement for prayer. A liturgist and poet, his work has been used by people of all faiths throughout the world. He’s written more than 700 pieces of new liturgy, offering a fresh new Jewish voice, challenging the boundaries between poetry, meditation, personal growth and prayer. He’s a teacher, a writing coach and an award-winning essayist and journalist. He’s an ELI talk fellow, speaking on “Falling in Love with Prayer.”
Alden’s writing was transformed by multiple tragedies, marked in 2009 by the sudden death of his wife from catastrophic brain injury. As a result, he deepened his exploration of meditation, poetry, liturgy and personal prayer as a healing, spiritual practice. His third book, This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day, was released in 2017 by CCAR Press. His next book, This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings, is anticipated this winter, also from CCAR Press.
Alden’s work has been widely anthologized, including Men Pray (Skylight Paths Publishing) and Choosing a Jewish Life (Anita Diamant, Schocken), as well as these CCAR Press books: Gates of Shabbat; Mishkah R’Fuah: Where Healing Resides; L’col Z’man Eit: For Sacred Moments, a Rabbi’s Manual; and Mishkan Hanefesh, a new machzor. Alden is a three-time winner of Chicago journalism’s top prize for essay writing. He was the National Havurah Committee’s 2015 Summer Institute Liturgist-In-Residence. Here are his publishing credits.
Alden is available to teach, read his work or serve as liturgist-in-residence. His teaching spans from U.S. synagogues to Limmud Conference UK to HUC-JIR, Jerusalem. Here’s his speaking schedule, as well as testimonials from rabbis and educators.
Alden holds a B.A. in English composition with a minor in literature from Beloit College, an M.A. in journalism from the University of Illinois-Springfield and an M.B.A. in economics and finance from the University of Chicago. He previously served as executive editor and associate publisher for the Journals of the American Hospital Association.
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