Week of Prayer for World Peace (Day 1) Jewish Prayers

On this first day of the Week of Prayer for World Peace, Hazzan Harold Messinger and Caroline Friewald offer a Jewish prayer to this international and interfaith call to peace. The intention of this global collaboration is to encourage those seeking peace for all of humanity to expand our own practices of prayer by embracing the prayers of other traditions. Our hope is that by nurturing understanding, empathy, and harmony among diverse faith communities, we can stand grounded and united in our work for justice and peace. We pray together that we might act together. 

Preparing Prayers 

The preparations for this year’s Week of Prayer for World Peace began seven months ago. Prayer leaders from around the world from eight different traditions volunteered to offer prayers according to their tradition following this year’s theme of Praying with Hope in a Troubled World. Each leader was assigned a concern under this umbrella. A digital platform was created and the work of the committee began, to host and disseminate the moving prayers that were being thoughtfully assembled. As each prayer video was submitted, we wept at the entries, for the honor to gather them. Prayers and Pray-ers holding space for suffering and strife. Peace sought from the most personal of conflicts to the most global.

Timely Prayers

We placed Hazzan Harold’s prayers on the first day, for those suffering the ongoing effects of conflict. And then the news unfolded. Rockets raining. A kibbutz attacked. Bystanders to conflict again wrapped in the tendrils of terror. And prayers for the ongoing effects of conflict now felt in the fingertips of hands clasped in prayer.

Hazzan Harold is the Prayer Leader and Spiritual Music Director at Congregation Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, Pa. For 16 years he has led prayer and brought new innovation to the musical and spiritual life of this community. From puppets to podcasts, he enriches the prayer life of the community through the inclusion of a wide variety of music and by seeking out congregants to take genuine leadership roles in prayer. His commitment to interfaith work is known through his dynamic leadership in the Interfaith Music Project of Philadelphia. He is a board member of Alignment: Interfaith Contemplative Practices where he often offers sessions of Jewish prayer chanting. He and his Interfaith Music Project partner, Molly Hicks, also offer interfaith sessions of contemplative prayer through song.

A Very Narrow Bridge: Gesher tzar me’od

Hazzan Harold and Caroline sing, on this first day of Prayers for World Peace, the words of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Ukraine. Reb Nachman revived the Hasidic movement of Judaism founded by his great-grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, a Jewish mystic living in West Ukraine in the 18th century.

Kol ha’olam kulo
Gesher tzar me’od
Veha’ikar lo lifached k’lal.

כָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלוֹ גֶשֶׁר צַר מְּאֹד וְהָעִיקָר לֹא לְפַחֵד כְּלַל

The whole world, all of it
Is a very narrow bridge
and the essential thing is not to have fear rule.

Joining with our siblings of different traditions, all children of divine making, may we pray with Hazzan Harold Messinger, with Caroline Friewald, with Beth Am Israel, with our Jewish friends, family, and neighbors, with those we will never know and never meet, may we pray for peace. May the world for us be a very narrow bridge.

Lyrics: Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
Music: Rabbi Yosef Goldman
Sung by: Hazzan Harold Messinger and Caroline Friewald

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n.b. The doors open at midnight US Eastern Time each day of this week with a new prayer. Once a prayer opens, it will remain open to be revisited through the year. Please contact us if you would like the embed code to host the WPWP on your own website. 

The annual gathering to commence the Week of Prayer will be held by Zoom, and you are most welcome to join.
Among the presenters at the gathering will be the Rev. Dr. Inderjit Bhogal, president of City of Sanctuary, Rabbi Alissa Wise, Ann Strizaker from Brahma Kumaris, Theo Mbazumutima, Wilson/Hinkes Peace Award Recipient from Burundi, Clare Sibley from the Iona Community, and Margaret Somerville from Alignment 

Week of Prayer for World Peace Annual Gathering
Time: Oct 15, 2023 03:30 PM London, 10:30 am ET
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81243114721?pwd=Z21FV25lSGxtUjV6Mjd1U1JoVnZ0dz09
Meeting ID: 812 4311 4721
Passcode: 838199