Ahava Rabbah -- a poetic English translation

You whose Unity is acted out
In the wheeling of the galaxies
And the pulsing of each atom,
In the double spiral that spins in every living cell
And in the loop of memory and imagination --

We praise You for loving us so deeply
As to let your Unity become transparent,
Seen, heard, savored, known to us.

We praise You for loving us so deeply
As to let our Unity become apparent,
Felt, touched, nurtured, known to us.

We praise You for the Unity, tall and majestic,
That leaps from the letters on the parchment of Your Torah,
That lights up our faces as we turn toward Your teachings,
That rises in the rooms where we gather to hear You.

We praise You for the Unity between the generations
That lets us remember the wisdom of our forebears
In order to deepen the joy of our offspring;
That lets us imagine the needs of our offspring
In order to sift the teachings of our forebears.
Always renewing in order to return,
Always returning in order to renew.

We praise You for the Unity that draws all peoples
Together from the corners of the earth.
We praise You for the Unity of life
That intertwines the earth and air and oceans
So that there are no corners on the earth.

We praise You for the Unity within each one of us
That we scatter to the winds like seeds of Wholeness,
As we reach out to make Your world more wholly holy.
Help us to harvest what we have sown.
Help us to sense Your Unity within ourselves.
Help us to be.

Blessed are You,
Source of all blessing,
Goal of all blessing,
Whose Unity appears through love.

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Director, The Shalom Center.