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What is this prayer "Lord we thank you for your gift of hope, our strength" that a Reform synagogue does first thing on a Shabbat morning?

(As in, where is this prayer from. I wonder if I've heard the Hebrew in an Orthodox service, but I can't see what the Hebrew of it is as there's no Hebrew in their siddur on that page. Is it in an ArtScroll siddur?)

On Page 157 of their siddur top left of the image below

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/408118/157/

enter image description here

I noticed it in this video of them doing a Shabbat service that they streamed online. They open the service with it at 17:09 in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBqBbypjVKw.

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    Quick note there are some pretty major differences between english and american reform movements and this prayer is not found in the american liturgy as far as i can see
    – ezra
    Commented Mar 20, 2022 at 14:00
  • You accepted the answer but also seem to have edited the question to change it. I'm confused.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Mar 20, 2022 at 16:58
  • @DoubleAA I didn't change the question, I made it more clear. The person that answered it understood it and their answer of course applies to the question as it stands as well as as it was.. I edited it(making it more clear), because it was given a close vote
    – barlop
    Commented Mar 20, 2022 at 17:10
  • 6
    @barlop I would ignore the close vote. The vote seems to have stemmed from a belief that this site is solely Orthodox-centric and anything else is off-topic (hence it being voted "comparative religion"). That is currently not the policy of this site, so I see no reason to consider your question problematic in any way.
    – Harel13
    Commented Mar 20, 2022 at 17:29

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The prayer seems to have been authored by Reform Rabbis Lionel Blue and Jonathan Magonet and first appeared in the prayer book they edited, "Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship, Vol. 1, Shabbat and Daily Prayerbook" (RSGB, London, 1977) (see "A Sectarian Rite Gone Mainstream and Cutting-edge: the Blossoming of 'Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship, Volume I'" by Eric L. Friedland, p. 21). For some of the reasoning behind this prayer and others authored by Blue, see for example "Prayer for a Worldly Society: The Van der Zyl Lecture" and this Q&A.

In "Were Our Mouths Filled With Song: Studies in Liberal Jewish Liturgy", pg. 122, Friedland wrote:

"[...] And the prefatory prayer itself right after mah tovu is couched, innovatively, in the form of a berakhah:

"ה' מודים אנחנו לך על שטפחת בנו תקוה. עזנו היא בעת־צרה: למרות־העול שבזמננו. האכזריות והמלחמות. נצפה לעולם שכלו שלום ושבו יגמלו חסדים ואין מחריד: כל־עברה מעכבתו וכל־מצוה מקרבתו: נהיה־נא עדיך ויברכונו דורות עתידים לבוא:
תן בלבנו להתפלל ולקות לעבוד ולזכות לבוא היום הנרמז על־ידי־נביאך וזרחה שמש צדקה ומרפא בכנפיה לכל־בריותיך. ברוך אתה ה' מקוה־ישראל. אמן:"

[and below he brings the English form of the prayer]

In other words, the prayer is an introduction to morning services.

According to him, ibid. pg. 119, the main idea behind this prayer and others added in the book was to simplify the Reform prayers. I assume that this can be seen in the fairly modern Hebrew employed here.

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