As requested by those dwelling in the Diaspora
For Hebrew version for Israeli citizens click here
Lord of the Universe
We, the people of Israel who are dwelling in the Diaspora,
come to you in humility
and pray for Your help.
Once more, our soldiers are asked
to defend our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land
against our enemies.
We ask You to have pity on them,
to help them watch over our people
with clean hands
and a merciful heart.
Give our people the strength
to remain in good spirit,
live in unity and walk in Your ways,
the ways of justice and truth.
Calm our soldiers’ wives, children, mothers and fathers.
Lift their spirits and give them strength
while their husbands, fathers and sons fight for our people.
Prevent them from making mistakes
by hurting or killing their fellow brothers-in-arms
with friendly fire.
Please,
let their bullets not hurt those children of our enemies
whose “guardians” place them deliberately in danger spots,
fire on our soldiers
and then shield themselves
behind their own people
so as to fault our soldiers when their children
get hurt, or even killed.
Let our soldiers not accidentally hit schools, hospitals
or convoys which provide food and medicine,
as they are men who stand in awe before You
and this would unwittingly cause the violation of Your holy Name,
Remove the evil spirit of these “guardians”;
make them realize the wickedness of their actions.
Stop their teachers from manipulating their students
by spreading hatred against us in their schoolbooks
on the radio, television and internet.
Let good people on our planet not be indoctrinated
with evil talk about our army by those who manipulate
the media and are motivated by anti-Semitism.
Erase the evil intentions of those members of the
Security Council who distort the truth.
O God,
as one of our Prime Ministers, Golda Meir, once expressed:
We may one day forgive our enemies for killing our children,
but we will never forgive them for forcing our soldiers to kill.
We beg You,
do not allow our Jewish souls to undergo
this ordeal which we cannot bear.
We are the children of Avraham, your servant,
who prayed for the evil people of Sedom
in the hope that they would repent
and live decent lives.
We therefore entreat You
to make our enemies repent,
force them to understand
that our fellow Jews in Israel are good people
who wish to live in peace
with all their neighbors.
O Lord, remove atrocities from our enemies’ thoughts,
such as those in which they dip their hands
in our soldiers’ blood.
As Jews, we cannot fathom
doing this to even our worst enemies.
You commanded us to live in a country
barely larger than a tiny island,
our population smaller than that of
many single cities.
You asked us to live there so as to send
Your holy word to all corners of the world.
But our brothers and sisters in Israel are surrounded by many nations
comprising more than a hundred million people
who inhabit one of the largest regions of the world,
yet deny our fellow Jews the right to live
in even the smallest corner of our planet,
and only wish our extinction.
Give the Arab nations and the Palestinians
leaders who are men of justice,
who truly care for their people
and will not bring their own brothers
to despair and unbearable pain
while accusing our brothers of grave injustice
when they try to help them.
Now, after thousands of years dwelling on Earth,
after many exiles, pogroms, tortures,
expulsions and holocausts,
we finally found our way back
to our small homeland,
that which You promised to our forefathers.
But once more our dreams of peace
have gone up in smoke
as our fellow Jews in Israel tried, risking their own lives,
to find a way to allow their neighbors
to live their own lives.
While they were prepared to make sacrifices
for the well-being of these people,
as no other nation ever did,
while they offered them land, peace, finances,
even firearms with which to defend themselves,
they pay the price once more for being a people
who want to trust another nation and its leaders.
Once more they have been misled.
Why do so many wish to portray us
as an evil people?
Perhaps to deny Your existence
and Your moral demands?
They hide behind their own wickedness
and cover up their and their fathers’
immoral acts which they brought upon us
and our forefathers for thousands of years.
O God, You know
that no army in world history
has used so much restraint
as the Israeli army.
No army is as careful not to hurt or kill
as ours.
But what can they do when they are fired upon by thousands of rockets,
and have to defend nearly one million of our brothers and sisters
in the south of our Holy Land,
and are denied the possibility
to clearly show this to the world?
Please, God,
bring peace into the hearts and minds
of our enemies.
Let them be uplifted with a spirit of righteousness.
Stop them from hating us for being Your people.
Let us sanctify Your name,
For this is our mission and dream.
Allow us the possibility, once again,
to teach Your ways to the nations of the world
and make them hear and understand.
We hate war as nobody else does,
we abhor the need to carry weapons,
and we cannot stand the sound
of our own artillery and tanks.
We are the People of the Book
The Book which demands
holiness, kindness and integrity.
Our heroes are not the generals or marshals,
but rather our prophets and our sages,
men of righteousness.
So, deliver our soldiers from this anguish;
bring peace to the nations.
Let our soldiers not be compelled to use force against them
for their enemies will have no escape.
Let the world not forget that our army is fighting not only our fight
but a fight for all of mankind,
to undo the evil of terror which has swept Your world.
Bring our soldiers home from the battlefields, alive and unharmed,
in their own merit and in the merit of their wives, children and parents,
so that they can sanctify Your name.
Let the blessing which You gave to Avraham come true,
“And through you all the families of the Earth will be blessed”.
For this is our hope.
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