[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 72 (Thursday, May 26, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S5945]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer:
  Eternal One, Rock of all ages, help us to hear the voices of our 
forebears that still linger in the silent places of this historic 
Chamber of debate and decision. Let us draw devotional inspiration this 
morning from the life of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, founder of the Hebrew 
Union College, who led this Senate in prayer 135 years ago to this very 
week. May one brief moment from the life of this famed American 
clergyman renew in us a commitment to the core of righteous living.
  For we have been taught that once, when this rabbi took ill amidst a 
class and was compelled to descend from his teaching platform, a young, 
eager student jumped up, grabbed his arm, and said: ``May I help you 
down, Doctor?''
  In response to this question, the rabbi uttered words that remind us 
anew of what is good and what God does require of us all: ``Never help 
a person down,'' the rabbi told his student. ``Try always to help 
people up.''
  In this year, marking 350 years of Jewish life in America, we offer 
up our prayerful and reverential gratitude to the source of life for 
implanting within our hearts the vision of our noble Republic, ever 
striving to help people up.
  O may all who labor in this House--and in every house--be inspired 
anew by the prophet Micah's exhortation, a charge that the father of 
this Nation deeply cherished and repeatedly cited: Do justly, love 
mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.
  Fervently we pray that the vision we hallow will animate all of us to 
live ``with malice toward none, with charity for all . . . [so we can 
finish] the work we are in.''
  Amen.

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