Liturgy is constantly evolving to express the needs of the Jewish People. While we are gifted with a rich and beautiful liturgical history from our ancestors, we are continuously adding to our collection of prayers as we give new voice to our ongoing relationship with ourselves, with the world we inhabit, and with the Divine.
I love this prayer, Wildly Unimaginable Blessings, written for the year 5781 (or 2021) by Israeli poet and liturgist Alden Solovy. May it inspire hope in your day and may our entire community be blessed with the fullness of life and the gift of good health in the year ahead. Kein y’hi ratson—so may it be God’s will.
Wildly Unimaginable Blessings by Alden Solovy
Let us dream wildly unimaginable blessings,
Blessings so unexpected, blessings so beyond our hope for this world,
Blessings so unbelievable in this era
That their very existence uplifts our vision of creation,
Our relationships to each other, and our yearning for life itself.
Let us dream wildly unimaginable blessings,
A complete healing of body, mind, and spirit, a complete healing for all,
The end of suffering and strife, the end of plague and disease,
When kindness flows from the river of love, when goodness flows from the river of grace,
Awakened in the spirit of all beings, when God’s light, radiating holiness, is seen by everyone.
Let us pray — with all our hearts — for wildly unimaginable blessings,
So that God will hear the call to open the gates of the Garden,
Seeing that we haven’t waited, that we’ve already begun to repair the world,
In testimony to our faith in life, our faith in each other, our faith in the Holy One,
Blessed be God’s name.
— Cantor Emma Lutz