Saint Patrick depicted on the cladding during recent restoration work at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin … today is Saint Patrick’s Day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
Today is Saint Patrick’s Day, and the national celebrations throughout Ireland are expected to be the most joyful since the Covid pandemic restrictions introduced two years ago. Before today begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.
During Lent this year, in this Prayer Diary on my blog each morning, I am reflecting in these ways:
1, Short reflections on a psalm or psalms;
2, reading the psalm or psalms;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Psalm 37:
Psalm 37 is thought to have been written by King David in his old age. In the slightly different numbering in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations it counted as Psalm 36.
Psalm 37 is a response to the problem of evil, which often expressed in the Bible as a question: why do the wicked prosper and the good suffer? It addresses one of the great dilemmas in Scripture: why do the wicked seem to prosper while the righteous are suffering?
The psalm answers that this situation is only temporary: God will reverse things, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked here on earth.
Psalm 37 has the form of an acrostic Hebrew poem. It is written as an acrostic and is divided into discrete sections. Each section ends with God’s resolution of the question.
The psalm has also been understood as a prayer of the persecuted who has taken refuge in the Temple or figuratively of refuge in God.
The psalm concludes with a plea to God for those who honour him, to bless them with his justice and to protect them from the snares of the wicked.
‘Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart’ (Psalm 37: 4) … candlelight in the choir stalls in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Psalm 37 (NRSVA):
Of David.
1 Do not fret because of the wicked;
do not be envious of wrongdoers,
2 for they will soon fade like the grass,
and wither like the green herb.
3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
6 He will make your vindication shine like the light,
and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
7 Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.
8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath.
Do not fret – it leads only to evil.
9 For the wicked shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
10 Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there.
11 But the meek shall inherit the land,
and delight in abundant prosperity.
12 The wicked plot against the righteous,
and gnash their teeth at them;
13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that their day is coming.
14 The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to kill those who walk uprightly;
15 their sword shall enter their own heart,
and their bows shall be broken.
16 Better is a little that the righteous person has
than the abundance of many wicked.
17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,
but the Lord upholds the righteous.
18 The Lord knows the days of the blameless,
and their heritage will abide for ever;
19 they are not put to shame in evil times,
in the days of famine they have abundance.
20 But the wicked perish,
and the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures;
they vanish – like smoke they vanish away.
21 The wicked borrow, and do not pay back,
but the righteous are generous and keep giving;
22 for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land,
but those cursed by him shall be cut off.
23 Our steps are made firm by the Lord,
when he delights in our way;
24 though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong,
for the Lord holds us by the hand.
25 I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.
26 They are ever giving liberally and lending,
and their children become a blessing.
27 Depart from evil, and do good;
so you shall abide for ever.
28 For the Lord loves justice;
he will not forsake his faithful ones.
The righteous shall be kept safe for ever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
29 The righteous shall inherit the land,
and live in it for ever.
30 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom,
and their tongues speak justice.
31 The law of their God is in their hearts;
their steps do not slip.
32 The wicked watch for the righteous,
and seek to kill them.
33 The Lord will not abandon them to their power,
or let them be condemned when they are brought to trial.
34 Wait for the Lord, and keep to his way,
and he will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on the destruction of the wicked.
35 I have seen the wicked oppressing,
and towering like a cedar of Lebanon.
36 Again I passed by, and they were no more;
though I sought them, they could not be found.
37 Mark the blameless, and behold the upright,
for there is posterity for the peaceable.
38 But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed;
the posterity of the wicked shall be cut off.
39 The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
he is their refuge in the time of trouble.
40 The Lord helps them and rescues them;
he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.
Today’s Prayer:
The USPG Prayer Diary has a particular focus on Ireland and the Church of Ireland this week, and I introduced this theme in the prayer diary on Sunday (13 March 2022). The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary this morning (17 March 2022, Saint Patrick’s Day) invites us to pray:
Today we pray for the Church of Ireland and give thanks for the life and legacy of Saint Patrick.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
‘Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him’ (Psalm 37: 6) … inside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
17 March 2022
For Jewish refugees, every story
is different and everyone has
their own story on this Purim
Rabbi Yitzchak Raskin prepares food for a group of refugees in Bucharest (Photograph: Chabad)
While almost everyone in Ireland, and everyone who claims Irish roots, is preparing to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, Jews throughout the world are celebrating Purim, which begins this evening (16 March 2022) and continues until tomorrow evening (17 March).
Purim recalls the account in the Scroll of Esther of how the Jews of Persia were under dire threat of extermination, saved by a divinely orchestrated combination of serendipity, bravery, and faith.
The extreme joy of Purim came after some extremely challenging times. But as Jews everywhere celebrate Purim, many are thinking this evening of those Jewish people in Ukraine, many of them too scared to venture out to celebrate as a community, and thinking of those Jews who will be marking Purim in refugee camps or in unfamiliar surroundings far from their families and their home.
Purim is a story of when the Jewish people in Persia triumphed over those who were set to destroy them. It is a story of our perseverance, and something to celebrate. And so, the story of Esther has particular resonances for Jewish communities and families in Ukraine this week.
In the last two weeks, some 22,000 Jewish Ukrainian refugees have streamed to Ukraine’s borders. There, after a treacherous journey by bus, car or train, they must wait at one of Ukraine’s international border crossings for many hours before their dash to safety is over.
But then they find the journey has just begun. Usually arriving with little more than a carry-on bag and the clothes on their back, they are thrust into the world of the unknown, in foreign countries filled with people speaking languages they do not know. The second phase of the journey is usually through Poland, Moldova, Romania, Hungary or Slovakia.
The World Jewish Congress is working with its two Ukrainian affiliates, the VAAD of Ukraine and the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine (JCU), in an ever-changing and unpredictable crisis.
The situation changes hour-by-hour, but the WJC understands there have been no specific threats directed towards the Jewish community of Ukraine greater than those felt by other Ukrainians.
The JCU is focused on providing critical life-saving aid to the most vulnerable group in this situation – the Jews of Kyiv from the elderly home, among whom are many Holocaust survivors. These people cannot be evacuated due to their age and medical condition.
Jewish communities bordering Ukraine have stepped up to help the refugees entering their countries.
At the Polish and Moldovan borders, Jewish volunteer teams waiting with hot food ready to assist the bedraggled refugees after days of traveling. In Romania, Slovakia and Hungary, private apartments and homes, hotel rooms and even entire campsites and hotels have been secured to house the refugees as they find their bearings and plan the next steps.
The Federation of the Jewish Communities of Romania has two welcome centres on the borders with Ukraine: one at Siret, which is the main border crossing, and one at Sighetu Marmatieti. They are is taking care of about 2,000 Jewish refugees, providing accommodation, food, and medical care, and serving 2,000 hot meals a day, with volunteers distributing clothing and blankets and running a 24/7 helpline in English, Russian, and Hebrew.
Rabbi Naftali Deutsch and Risha Deutsch of Chabad, together with Rabbi Yitzchak Raskin and Dvora Lea Raskin, have been welcoming hundreds of refugees in Bucharest each day, providing a hot, fresh meal and finding a place to stay. When a woman from Odessa went into labour, Risha Deutsch, herself a mother of six, rushed her to hospital, where she gave birth to a healthy child.
Max Feferboim, who arrived in Bucharest from Kyiv through Moldova some days ago, translates, calls hotels to secure rooms, helps refugees get legal documents, and finds doctors and medication. ‘Many older people are arriving; many women and children are arriving alone. They don’t know what to do or where to go,’ he says.
In Iași, Chabad has secured three hotels and is running a massive operation to feed and house the refugees. The effort is being led by Rabbi Shalom Gopin, who arrived in Romania from Ukraine last week. But this is not Rabbi Gopin’s first time on the run: in 2014, he fled Lugansk in eastern Ukraine with his community for Kyiv.
Rabbi Gopin and his wife Chani have rented a hotel, and there they began cooking for hundreds of people for Shabbat. Very quickly, they ran out of food and had to ship more in from Bucharest. He says: ‘This is a humanitarian catastrophe that Europe hasn’t known since World War II. You cannot imagine the terrible pain.’
In Cluj-Napoca, Rabbi Dovber and Fraidy Orgad are feeding and sheltering hundreds of refugees on a daily basis. He rented the biggest hotel in town, koshered the kitchen and transformed it into a refugee camp overnight. One of the first groups to stay there was were children from a Jewish children’s home in Zhitomir, Ukraine.
More than 1 million Ukrainian refugees have crossed over into Poland, including many Ukrainian Jews. In Kraków, Rabbi Eliezer Gurary is working with a local hotel and several private apartments and homes to accommodate refugees from Ukraine. He describes how people arrive at the border with no way forward and in dire need of help.
In Hungary, over 50 Jewish NGOs have formed a crisis team to coordinate relief efforts for refugees from Ukraine. Their actions speak directly to the mitzvah of ‘Tikkun Olam’ – repairing the world.
Volunteers from Jewish communities in Hungary are welcoming refugees at the main train station in Budapest. Currently Jewish communities are hosting and accommodating some 1,000 people. We are all grateful.
An aid delivery was recently sent from Hungary to the Jewish community of Ukraine, with sleeping bags, medicine, and food necessities. In Debrecen, close to the border, Rabbi Shmuel Faigen and Riki Faigen have been receiving a constant flow of refugees.
Similar stories are being told in Slovakia, where the Slovakian Jewish community in the last few days is also extremely active in preparing for the influx of potentially larger number of Jewish refugees and to be ready for any scenario possible.
But, of course, every story is different and each person has his or her own story. Volunteers came across one Jewish woman, whose grandparents spoke Yiddish but who received no Jewish education herself. ‘She lit Shabbat candles here for the first time.’
Chag Purim Sameach
While almost everyone in Ireland, and everyone who claims Irish roots, is preparing to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, Jews throughout the world are celebrating Purim, which begins this evening (16 March 2022) and continues until tomorrow evening (17 March).
Purim recalls the account in the Scroll of Esther of how the Jews of Persia were under dire threat of extermination, saved by a divinely orchestrated combination of serendipity, bravery, and faith.
The extreme joy of Purim came after some extremely challenging times. But as Jews everywhere celebrate Purim, many are thinking this evening of those Jewish people in Ukraine, many of them too scared to venture out to celebrate as a community, and thinking of those Jews who will be marking Purim in refugee camps or in unfamiliar surroundings far from their families and their home.
Purim is a story of when the Jewish people in Persia triumphed over those who were set to destroy them. It is a story of our perseverance, and something to celebrate. And so, the story of Esther has particular resonances for Jewish communities and families in Ukraine this week.
In the last two weeks, some 22,000 Jewish Ukrainian refugees have streamed to Ukraine’s borders. There, after a treacherous journey by bus, car or train, they must wait at one of Ukraine’s international border crossings for many hours before their dash to safety is over.
But then they find the journey has just begun. Usually arriving with little more than a carry-on bag and the clothes on their back, they are thrust into the world of the unknown, in foreign countries filled with people speaking languages they do not know. The second phase of the journey is usually through Poland, Moldova, Romania, Hungary or Slovakia.
The World Jewish Congress is working with its two Ukrainian affiliates, the VAAD of Ukraine and the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine (JCU), in an ever-changing and unpredictable crisis.
The situation changes hour-by-hour, but the WJC understands there have been no specific threats directed towards the Jewish community of Ukraine greater than those felt by other Ukrainians.
The JCU is focused on providing critical life-saving aid to the most vulnerable group in this situation – the Jews of Kyiv from the elderly home, among whom are many Holocaust survivors. These people cannot be evacuated due to their age and medical condition.
Jewish communities bordering Ukraine have stepped up to help the refugees entering their countries.
At the Polish and Moldovan borders, Jewish volunteer teams waiting with hot food ready to assist the bedraggled refugees after days of traveling. In Romania, Slovakia and Hungary, private apartments and homes, hotel rooms and even entire campsites and hotels have been secured to house the refugees as they find their bearings and plan the next steps.
The Federation of the Jewish Communities of Romania has two welcome centres on the borders with Ukraine: one at Siret, which is the main border crossing, and one at Sighetu Marmatieti. They are is taking care of about 2,000 Jewish refugees, providing accommodation, food, and medical care, and serving 2,000 hot meals a day, with volunteers distributing clothing and blankets and running a 24/7 helpline in English, Russian, and Hebrew.
Rabbi Naftali Deutsch and Risha Deutsch of Chabad, together with Rabbi Yitzchak Raskin and Dvora Lea Raskin, have been welcoming hundreds of refugees in Bucharest each day, providing a hot, fresh meal and finding a place to stay. When a woman from Odessa went into labour, Risha Deutsch, herself a mother of six, rushed her to hospital, where she gave birth to a healthy child.
Max Feferboim, who arrived in Bucharest from Kyiv through Moldova some days ago, translates, calls hotels to secure rooms, helps refugees get legal documents, and finds doctors and medication. ‘Many older people are arriving; many women and children are arriving alone. They don’t know what to do or where to go,’ he says.
In Iași, Chabad has secured three hotels and is running a massive operation to feed and house the refugees. The effort is being led by Rabbi Shalom Gopin, who arrived in Romania from Ukraine last week. But this is not Rabbi Gopin’s first time on the run: in 2014, he fled Lugansk in eastern Ukraine with his community for Kyiv.
Rabbi Gopin and his wife Chani have rented a hotel, and there they began cooking for hundreds of people for Shabbat. Very quickly, they ran out of food and had to ship more in from Bucharest. He says: ‘This is a humanitarian catastrophe that Europe hasn’t known since World War II. You cannot imagine the terrible pain.’
In Cluj-Napoca, Rabbi Dovber and Fraidy Orgad are feeding and sheltering hundreds of refugees on a daily basis. He rented the biggest hotel in town, koshered the kitchen and transformed it into a refugee camp overnight. One of the first groups to stay there was were children from a Jewish children’s home in Zhitomir, Ukraine.
More than 1 million Ukrainian refugees have crossed over into Poland, including many Ukrainian Jews. In Kraków, Rabbi Eliezer Gurary is working with a local hotel and several private apartments and homes to accommodate refugees from Ukraine. He describes how people arrive at the border with no way forward and in dire need of help.
In Hungary, over 50 Jewish NGOs have formed a crisis team to coordinate relief efforts for refugees from Ukraine. Their actions speak directly to the mitzvah of ‘Tikkun Olam’ – repairing the world.
Volunteers from Jewish communities in Hungary are welcoming refugees at the main train station in Budapest. Currently Jewish communities are hosting and accommodating some 1,000 people. We are all grateful.
An aid delivery was recently sent from Hungary to the Jewish community of Ukraine, with sleeping bags, medicine, and food necessities. In Debrecen, close to the border, Rabbi Shmuel Faigen and Riki Faigen have been receiving a constant flow of refugees.
Similar stories are being told in Slovakia, where the Slovakian Jewish community in the last few days is also extremely active in preparing for the influx of potentially larger number of Jewish refugees and to be ready for any scenario possible.
But, of course, every story is different and each person has his or her own story. Volunteers came across one Jewish woman, whose grandparents spoke Yiddish but who received no Jewish education herself. ‘She lit Shabbat candles here for the first time.’
Chag Purim Sameach
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