My God, the soul which you have placed within me is pure. You have created it; You have formed it; You have breathed it into me. You preserve it within me; You will take it from me, and restore it to me in the hereafter. So long as the soul is within me, I offer thanks before You, Lord my God and God of my fathers, Master of all creatures, Lord of all souls. Blessed are You, Lord, who restores souls to the dead.

Babylonian Talmud, Brakhot 60B 

 A Mother’s Prayer Before Dawn

Chava Pinchas-Cohen

At this time as I stand cooking oatmeal,

Remove all sorts of alien thoughts from me

And when I touch the baby’s back and take his temperature

May all sorts of problems disappear,

May they not confuse my thoughts.

And give me the strength to scrub my face

So that each one of my children

Can see his face in mine

As in a mirror washed for a festival.

And the darkness sunk within

My face-cover it with light

So that I don’t lose my patience, and I won’t be hoarse

From coarse, insistent screaming.

May I not experience weakness

Before the unknowable

And may it never end, even for a moment,

The touch of flesh upon flesh, my children’s and mine.

Give me so much of Your love

That I can stand at the door and hand it out

With the simplicity of someone slicing bread

And smearing butter every morning.

Renew the sweet offering of boiling milk bubbling over

And the smell of coffee hovering above

The thanksgiving sacrifice and the daily sacrifice

That I don’t know how they are given.

Chava Pinchas-Cohen, a well known poet living in Jerusalem, has been the editor of “Dimui” a religious arts magazine since 1989.