Patrick Comerford
In the Jewish calendar, these are the High Holy Days or the Days of Awe. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began last Friday evening (11 September 2026), beginning the year 5787 in the Jewish calendar, and ended at nightfall on Sunday (13 September). Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement begins with Kol Nidre at sunset on Sunday evening (20 September) and ends at nightfall on Monday (21 September). It is the peak of the High Holidays and the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, when people fast, pray, seek forgiveness from God and one another, and seek to come closer to God.
The Shabbat before Yom Kippur is called Shabbat Shuvah (the Sabbath of Return) or Shabbat Teshuvah. This Shabbat during the Ten Days of Repentance, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in the middle of the solemn days of judgment and soul-searching, acts like a bridge between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
These Days of Awe (ימים נוראים, Yamim Noraim) provide the opportunity to ask for forgiveness from others, to reflect on the previous year and to pray for a sweet year to come. The name of this Shabbat comes from the special prophetic reading (haftarah) from the Book of Hosea, beginning with the word Shuvah (‘Return, O Israel …’), focusing on repentance and turning back to God.
The themes of this Shabbat combine the peace and joy of Shabbat with the inner reflection of the High Holidays. Rabbis traditionally reflect on this day with a special sermon that focuses on repentance, charity and better deeds. Shabbat Shuva, the Shabbat of Return, is a gift of time, returning to what truly matters and taking time for meaningful self-reflection and inner peace.
A prayer or reading that has become popular in many Jewish communities in recent years is ‘May it be your will,’ a poem by the Chasidic master, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1810). The words of the popular song, Gesher Tzar Me’od, ‘The Whole World is but a Narrow Bridge’, are also ascribed to Rabbi Nachman.
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov and a lineal descendant of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known popularly as the Maharal of Prague. He was born on 4 April 1772 in Międzybóż in Poland–Lithuania, now Medzhybizh in Ukraine. Rabbi Nachman revived the Hasidic movement by combining the Kabbalah with in-depth Torah scholarship, and was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement.
He attracted thousands of followers in his lifetime and was particularly known for his creative parables, drawing on Eastern European folktales. His philosophy revolved around closeness to God, speaking to God in normal conversation ‘as you would with a best friend’, and being happy. He died in Uman in Ukraine on 17 October 1810.
Through Martin Buber’s translations, his teaching influenced many 20th century writers, including Franz Kafka. In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye’s informal habitual talking out loud to God mirrors Rabbi Nachman’s spiritual practice of hitbodedut or personal, spontaneous prayer or heart-to-heart talking to God in one’s own words.
Rabbi Nachman’s prayers were preserved in a collection published after his death by his disciple, Rabbi Nathan, including the petition for peace. Its opening passage appears in English in Lev Chadash (לֵב חָדָשׁ), the siddur or prayer book of British Liberal Judaism, now the Movement for Progressive Judaism.
This version of Rabbi Nachman’s prayer was translated by the British rabbi, Rabbi Deborah Silver, now based in Los Angeles, received wider, world-wide circulation thanks to the Masorti movement and the response to the violence in Israel and Gaza that began three years ago with the attacks on 7 October 2023.
The translator Rabbi Deborah Silver is an associate rabbi at the IKAR synagogue in Los Angeles and also an adjunct professor at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. She was born in London, studied at Gonville and Caius College, and has degrees from Cambridge and the University of Essex.
With wars being waged around the world, this poem with its themes of peace seems appropriate at this solemn time in the Jewish year.
Rabbi Nachman’s prayer asks God to ‘erase war and bloodshed from the world and in its place draw down a great and glorious peace’, and for the inhabitants of the Earth to recognise that ‘we have not come into the world for division and strife’.
The opening petition appeals for the removal of war and bloodshed, replacing them with a profound peace where nations no longer learn or engage in war. It affirms that humanity was not created for division, hatred, or rage, but to encounter the divine.
It draws on Biblical passages asking for compassion, safety, and for banishing evil and war from the earth, and concludes with a vision of justice and righteousness flowing like water, filling the earth with the knowledge of the Holy One.
May it be Your will,
Holy One, our God, our ancestors’ God,
that you erase war and bloodshed from the world
and in its place draw down
a great and glorious peace
so that nation shall not lift up sword against nation
neither shall they learn war any more.
Rather, may all the inhabitants of the earth
recognise and deeply know
this great truth:
that we have not come into this world
for strife and division
nor for hatred and rage,
nor provocation and bloodshed.
We have come here only
to encounter You,
eternally blessed One.
And so,
we ask your compassion upon us;
raise up, by us, what is written:
I shall place peace upon the earth
and you shall lie down safe and undisturbed
and I shall banish evil beasts from the earth
and the sword shall not pass through your land.
but let justice come in waves like water
and righteousness flow like a river,
for the earth shall be full
of the knowledge of the Holy One
as the waters cover the sea.
So may it be.
And we say:
Amen.
(Translation © Rabbi Deborah Silver. The quotations are: Leviticus 26: 6, Amos 5: 24 and Isaiah 11: 9)
G’mar chatimah tovah (גמר חתימה טובה), A good final sealing.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
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