Prayers for a pandemic

Sometimes, a situation is so surreal, so radically different from anything one has ever experienced before — that old words don’t feel sufficient, that new prayers must be imagined and transcribed in order to give language to the fears of the times.

As the world grapples with a raging health crisis, Jewish thinkers are composing new prayers for our day — for health, for doctors and nurses, for medical research, for hand-washing.

Here, we have collected some of the written prayers to emerge from the last few weeks: A window into the Jewish soul at this very moment.