Amongst the myriad challenges of this current global health crisis is the painful loss of many long-standing milestones and celebrations marking some of the most joyous and proud moments of our lives. Weddings and bnai mitzvah, graduations and baby-namings we longingly anticipated have been canceled or postponed. So many of us are feeling a sense of grief for the should-have-been. And so, we share this prayer—an acknowledgement of such loss, and a hope that, through resilience and vision, our future simchas and sources of abundant pride will provide a renewed opportunity for meaning, connection, and gratitude.
A Prayer for the Frustrated and Disappointed
Rabbi Daniel A. Weiner
Light of Hope, Lens of Vision
You made us eager and excited,
Setting our hearts on celebrations and pride
In milestones reached and challenges overcome.
Yet you forged us for loss,
For grief, for anger and for the pain
Of what could-have-been.
Does One depend on the Other,
To make meaning, to focus view,
To feel blessed rather than cursed,
Contented over wanting?
Are we to nurture a seedling
Of character, or humility,
To better sense our place,
Or privilege, or fortune
In merely being?
Or is this just the way things are,
As we fix our needs and desires,
Our dreams and our faith,
Upon a world and life
That rises to meet us,
Or simply drifts away.
And so, we find You,
Not in the futile complaint,
But in the length of road;
Not in the absence or void,
But in the space, newly found;
Sparks from the silence,
Stoked into resilience.
Blessed Are You, The Holy One of Hope,
Who holds out the horizon,
And turns us into
Another day.