It has never been more clear than now that our democracy is precious and sacred. The following is a prayer written by Rabbi Jonathan Kligler:
“A prayer for the coming days:
May we each exercise our right and responsibility to vote in this year’s election, as voting is the sacred duty of all citizens in a democratic nation.
May we find within ourselves a calm center, a refuge from the unrelenting anxiety and anger that storms around us.
May we treat everyone we encounter with graciousness and care, even when we disagree. May we do our best to banish contempt, for even as contempt demeans others, it also poisons our own hearts.
May we stand up boldly for our principles.
And may we remember and embody the words of President Abraham Lincoln as he closed his first inaugural address to a nation on the brink of civil war:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory…will yet swell…when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
