| PRAYER OF THE JEWISH SOLDIER by Nathan Lopes Cardoza |
| L-rd of the Universe We, the soldiers of the people of Israel Come to You in humility And pray for Your help Once more, we are asked to defend our People and The Holy Land against our enemies We ask You to have mercy on us and Help us to watch over our people With clean hands And with a heart filled with mercy. Let our people have the strength to Stay in good spirits And live in unity and Walk in Your ways The ways of Justice and Truth. Let us not make mistakes And hurt those who are not guilty Who do not understand And have no part in this conflict Please Let our bullets not hurt those children of our enemies Whose parents place them deliberately in dangerous spots, Fire on us And then shield themselves Behind their own offspring against Our forces so as to fault us when their children Get hurt or even killed. Remove the evil spirit of these parents And make them realize the wickedness of their actions Stop their teachers from manipulating their students With hate for us in their schoolbooks On the radio, television and Internet O G-d, You know what one of our Prime Ministers once said; "We may forgive our enemies one day For hurting and killing our children But We cannot forgive them for having made our children Into those who needed to kill." We beg You, do not let our Jewish souls have to undergo This ordeal which we cannot bear We are the children of Avraham, Your servant, who Prayed for the evil people of Sedom with the hope that They should repent and live a decent life. So, we beg You Make our enemies repent Force them to understand that We are good people Who wish to live in peace with All our neighbors. O L-rd, Remove from their thoughts atrocities such as those In which they dip their hands In our blood As Jews, we Cannot fathom Doing this even against our worst enemies You commanded us to live in a country which Is little more Than a tiny island Our population is smaller than that of Many single cities You asked us to live there so as to send Your Holy Word to all the corners of the world But We are surrounded by many nations who Embody more than a hundred million people They inhabit one of the largest regions of the world But deny us the right to live in even the smallest corner of the world They do not want to listen And only wish our death Give the Arab nations Leaders Who are men of justice and who really Care for their people And do not wish to bring their own brothers to despair And unbearable pain With the intention To accuse us Of grave injustice Now, after thousands of years of our dwelling On this globe and after many exiles, tortures, pogroms, Expulsions and Holocausts We finally found our way back to our Small homeland Which You promised to our forefathers But once more our dreams of peace Have gone up in smoke While we were trying, at the risk of our own lives, We find a way to Allow our Palestinian neighbors to Live their own lives While we were prepared to make sacrifices For the welfare of these people As no other people ever did While we offered them land, peace, finances And even firearms so as to defend themselves We once more pay the price for being a people Who believe in the honesty of another nation and its leaders And once more we feel misled. Oh L-rd, remove the evil intentions of the Security Council which distorts the truth Remove the deliberate lies From the hearts of those who head the Media Why do they want to portray us As an evil people? They do so To deny Your existence and Your moral Demands They hide behind their own wickedness And cover up theirs and their fathers' Immoral acts which they brought on us And our forefathers for thousands Of years. O, G-d You know That No army in world history has used so much restraint As ours. No army is so careful not to hurt or kill As ours But what shall we do when they are not even prepared To give us the option To prove this to the world? Please G-d, Bring peace into the hearts and minds Of our enemies Let them be uplifted with a spirit of righteousness Stop them from hating us because we are Your people Let us sanctify Your Name as this is our Mission and our dream Give us the possibility once more to teach Your ways to the peoples Of the world And make them hear and Understand. We hate war as nobody else does, We abhor the need to wear weapons We cannot stand the sound of our own artillery And our tanks We are the people of the Book The Book which demands Holiness, Kindness, And integrity Our heroes are not the generals or the marshals But our prophets and our sages Men of righteousness So, deliver us from this anguish Bring peace to the nations Let us not be forced to use our strength against them For they will have no escape But 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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