A Prayer for Miracles

from Dr. Mirele Goldsmith and Liz Galst

This week the COP24 UN climate talks have begun in Poland; they will continue until December 14th. The point of the talks is to iron out the rules of the most recent climate agreement. Here’s an article from the New York Times which explains it all.  

Consider adding this prayer to your Hannukah candlelighting or Shabbat dinner this week. 

Baruch atah Adonai, elohaynu melech ha'olam, grantor of insight and maker of miracles at this season in times past. Teach the leaders of all the world's nations that human well-being and the well-being of the planet are intimately intertwined. Focus their attentions on the future, so that we may deliver the earth intact to our children.

Inspire us all to learn new skills, invent new processes, and exert our political  power to safeguard the earth you created with love. Open the gates of wisdom and dig deep the wells of action. Blessed are you, Adonai, who emboldens people to make great changes for good.                          

                                                                    --Liz Galst 

If you want to follow up your prayer with an action item, consider a Hanukkah gift to Our Children's Trust to support the lawsuit to secure the legal right to a safe, healthy climate.

Dr. Mirele B. Goldsmith is an environmental psychologist, educator, and activist. Mirele founded Jews Against Hydrofracking, directed the Jewish Greening Fellowship, and was a leader in the People’s Climate March and Jewish Climate Action Network-NYC. Mirele’s writing has been published by the Jewish Week, Forward, Shma, and Huffington Post. 

Liz Glast is the chair of the green team at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City and currently the editor of Barnard Magazine, the Barnard College alumnae magazine.