[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15801]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Today's opening prayer will be offered by 
Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, senior rabbi of Beth Tzedec Congregation in 
Toronto, Canada.
  The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer:
  God of us all, we assemble before You in humility, recalling both 
triumph and defeat, summer drought, autumn hurricane, and the 
cooperative resilience of our Nation. In this season after elections 
and before the new Congress, we ask that You give these Senators and 
our government the wisdom to avoid the exclusion of either/or and to 
embrace the blessings of both/and.
  Rather than fear falling off a cliff, help our leaders to learn to 
chimney. In climbing, chimneying requires pushing off one side of a 
mountain cleft and then the other to advance higher. The resistance of 
each face of the rock contributes to the ascent. Help these leaders to 
appreciate individual initiative and care for the distressed, to value 
competition and find a path for cooperation, to be mindful of human 
liberty and be grateful for mutual help, to recognize the occasional 
need for force and to forcefully pursue peace. Enable them to chimney 
up the cleft of our differences, to reclaim fiscal integrity and 
maintain social concern, to be exemplars of responsibility and 
reasonableness, so that all Americans may respect and rejoice in their 
leadership of this great country.
  Amen.

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