A Serenity Prayer with a Jewish Accent

It’s known as the Serenity Prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Yes, it’s about limitations, distinctions, and courage. But its most essential source of serenity is found in the word accept. 

The prayer, although it speaks to all of us, is more at home in Christianity, a religion that specializes in acceptance. Judaism is more about protest. Whether Abraham insists on behalf of Sodom or we are resisting tyrants like Pharaoh, our tradition prefers to remain maladjusted to things that aren’t right. 

And yet we do find a place for acceptance. The final part of next Saturday night’s Passover Seder is called Nirtzah, which means acceptance. We can’t conclude without the hope that our Seder has been accepted. It turns out that this word gets founded in this week’s portion of Torah. A mere four verses into the book of Leviticus, we’re taught to hope that our offerings are accepted (v’nirtzah) by God (Lev. 1:4). 

But there’s something important about our Jewish flavor of acceptance. It only comes after we’ve done our best. After we’ve insisted and resisted and acted to transform what’s so into what ought to be so. Being accepting is only permissible after we’re done all we can, and then some more. A Jewish accent of the Serenity Prayer accentuates activism, generating goodness at every turn. It insists on transforming devastating wreckage into the scaffolding for something hopeful. 

Congressman Ritchie Torres, a strong friend of Israel, will be with us this Shabbat. He recently reminded listeners that “America isn’t perfect, it’s perfectable. The essence of America isn’t perfection, it’s progress. And the same is true of Israel.” 

Acceptance comes at the end. We have to make a lot happen beforehand. May we never lose sight of this notion: what comes last may be less vital than what comes next.