Rabbi Seth Frisch, Temple Beth El, Portland, Maine, March 24, 1993, House prayer

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Blessing for the US House of Representatives

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Rabbi Seth Frisch, Temple Beth El, Portland, ME, March 24, 1993, House prayer

Rabbi transcript: The Festival of Passover proclaimed in your Bible, Lord, drawing near, and it is in the Passover festival meal that the question is asked by our youngest children: Why is this night different from all other nights? Why indeed, Lord? We open our doors and we say during the festival meal: All who are hungry, let them come and eat. We say this because there are those who in every generation have been hungry, and over the times and the years we have noticed that there are many who hunger, and these times are no different than those times. Lord, there are those who hunger for bread and those who hunger for freedom, and all too often they go hand in hand. While this does not make these times different from other times, yet we still ask for freedom from the fear of oppression and from the poverty of servitude which so many of Your children know from their own lives all too well. During the festival of freedom, the Passover proclaimed in Your Torah, Your Bible, we see that we are commanded to eat unleavened bread. We are told that it is the bread of affliction eaten by Your ancestors, our ancestors, in slavery in Egypt. We are told also in the Bible that it is the bread of freedom which was eaten the first night out of slavery, and we ask: What has changed? It is not the bread that is changed. It is the people who see it and feel it and eat it who have changed, and we notice, Lord, that the bread changes even today, for even our own people, we Americans in this Nation, have known and tasted of the bread of poverty and of the bread of freedom. But what makes this night different from all other nights and these times different from all other times is that those who hunger for freedom and for bread look to us, this Nation, this leadership, this House, for your help. So we today, Lord, look to You for Your guidance, and we ask that You answer our prayers and bestow upon our leaders the wisdom, the ability, and the means to lead us in the difficult challenges we must all face in the days and the months ahead. And so these are our prayers of blessing that You have bestowed upon us and that Your servants have always recited, thanking You for Your blessings in the past and asking for Your continued guidance all the days of our lives. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe, who has kept us in life, sustained us, and enabled us, all of us, to reach this day. Remain with us, teach us, and, dear Lord, guide us.

Rep. Andrews transcript:

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and honored to welcome to the House of Representatives Rabbi Seth H. Frisch, who offered this morning's opening prayer .

Rabbi Frisch was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City in 1986. He served for 3 years at the Temple Emmanuel in Newton, MA, before being installed at the Temple Beth El in Portland, ME, in 1989. Rabbi Frisch is the youngest rabbi ever installed at the Temple Beth El, the largest Jewish congregation north of Boston. He is also an active member of the community, a strong advocate for civil rights, and a good friend. I am pleased and honored to welcome Rabbi Frisch to the Nation's Capitol today and thank him on behalf of the U.S. House of Representatives for offering this morning's opening prayer .