Silenced rabbi’s ‘political’ prayer

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Facing intense pressure from liberal quarters — including from some students and alumni of Ramaz, the Upper East Side Jewish day school he led for decades — Rabbi Haskel Lookstein declined an invitation to deliver a benediction at this week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

The Republican National Committee sparked the rhubarb when it included Rabbi Lookstein — who worked with Ivanka Trump on her conversion — in a list of speakers, without specifying that his role would have been to deliver an invocation.

“Like my father before me, I have never been involved in politics,” Rabbi Lookstein said in a statement to the Ramaz School and Kehilath Jeshurun family. “Politics divides people. My life has been devoted to uniting a community — Ahavat Yisrael and ahavat ha-adam.”

This is the prayer Rabbi Lookstein said he had intended to deliver:

Rabbi Chanina, the Deputy High Priest, said: “Pray for the welfare of the government — for were it not for respect for it, people would swallow one another alive.”

Eternal G-d: We thank you for this blessed nation that for 240 years has translated into reality the Biblical command to “proclaim liberty throughout the land for all the inhabitants thereof.”

We thank you for our constitutional government that has created and fostered the American ideals of democracy, freedom, justice and equality for all, regardless of race, religion or national origin.

Almighty G-d: We know that we are living in very dangerous times, when all of these blessings are threatened from without, by forces of terror and unimaginable brutality, and from within, by those who sow the seeds of bigotry, hatred and violence, putting our lives and our way of life at risk.

And so we pray, Dear G-d: Help us to form a government which will protect us with sound strategy and steady strength; which will unite us with words of wisdom and acts of compassion; and which will thereby bring peace and harmony, safety and well-being to our beloved America and to all of humankind. And let us all say, Amen.