A Song For Healing: Elohei Oz

When Cantor Gaston Bogomolni of Beth Torah Benny Rok Campus in North Miami Beach asked me to participate in a special musical and educational program for Lag BaOmer, a celebration of bravery and cessation from plague, I immediately thought of the daily piyyut, Elohei Oz. It's not a traditional Lag BaOmer song, but one that so resonant for us today, full of supplication and hope for healing.

God of my strength,
Heal me and we will be healed
Send healing for my illness
So I do not die and am swept away
 
I will praise You with all my might as long as I live
In the midst of my family and friends
I will never stop praising You
With a pleasant voice and beautiful expression

Your salvation will come to me
You will make me walk upright again
I will return to my post
I await your goodness

Listen! For my heart aches
Like a fire that burns within me
No breath remains within me
And I am very weak

Cover me with Your graciousness
Support me wherever I go
Every day and every night
I will praise You with sweet words

Erase my wrongs like a passing cloud
In the shade of Shaddai I will dwell
I will see and understand
The place made of sapphires and jasper.

Couldn't these words have been written today?

“Beth Torah collects the Fire of Torah from the Five Continents”  features rabbis, cantors, artists, musicians, and scholars from around the world. Elohei Oz is in Part 2.

Listen and watch here:

The project is dedicated to the soul of Gaston’s uncle, Saúl Serebrinsky z "l, and his mother-in-law, Miriam Madrid z" l, both of whom died of Covid-19. May their memories be for a blessing and for the sake of world harmony.

The program will remain as a video that you can continue to access limitlessly!

In these unparalleled times of plague for us today, we need light and healing more than ever.

Watch on my new YouTube Channel.