Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff
Chaplain, U.S. Navy, Retired
Washington, DC
Date of Prayer: 11/20/2018
Opening Prayer Given by the Guest Chaplain:
Almighty God, we pray, reflect, meditate in different ways, but unite in condemnation when hatred rears its ugly head.
On this date in 1945 we helped convene a court in Nuremberg, proclaiming some actions so inhuman that they are crimes against humanity itself.
We condemned the false belief that any humans are less than human: "life unworthy of life."
Such thinking leads to slaughter, even here at home: dead children in their churches, hated for the color of their skin; beatings, killings,
lynchings that stained our landscape, and our history, with what poets called the strange and bitter fruit of bodies hanging from the trees;
and last month, in a Pittsburgh synagogue, men and women murdered because the shooter thought "all Jews should die."
God, we know that words and prayers still matter, when they are linked to action, grounded in our Nation's founding vision: that all are created equal, with rights to liberty and life, rights and dreams we must forever honor, cherish, and protect.
And may we say, amen.
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