Rabbi Stephanie Kolin gave this a blessing at the launch of The Revival: Time for a Moral Revolution of Values, a National Revival Tour to Redefine Morality in American Politics. Organized by Repairers of the Breach, Healing of the Nations Ministries, and Drum Major Institute, in coordination with local groups. Revival efforts will include training interfaith clergy and young adults in prophetic moral analysis, moral articulation, and moral activism; calling political leaders to rise above hatred and fear to our highest values of love and justice; and direct actions in state capitals led by clergy and impacted people for three Mondays in September, dramatizing the pain already inflicted by unjust policies. The launch occurred Sunday, April 3 at Riverside Church in New York City.

I am honored to offer this blessing upon the righteous journey ahead. I offer this blessing from my heart and on behalf of the Reform Jewish Movement, with our thousands of rabbis and millions of members. Know that our 900 congregations who are part of our national campaign for racial justice stand with you. As allies. Humbly, as partners. As friends who assert that the only way forward is together. As Jewish communities that are home to people of every color and category – we are commanded to love the stranger and love our neighbor and to remove hate from our hearts, from our actions, and even from our world. And so:

Aleinu, God, it is on all of us to repair our broken world, in partnership with You. May our compassionate God who stirs up our hearts, and rouses us from our slumber, opening our eyes to see the suffering that surrounds us – God who shakes us up and wakes us up with the sound of the shofar that calls us to action, that divine defibrillator that awakens our soul…bless this journey.

V’tishlach b’rachah b’ma’aseh yadeichem – May God bless the work of your hands as you build new infrastructures together that are open enough and strong enough to hold people of all races and religions and backgrounds, women, men, children, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, those living in poverty or struggling to overcome all odds against them to make it in this country.

V’tishlach b’rachah b’ma’aseh ragleichem – May God bless the work of your feet as you walk together from city to city, to doorway to meeting room to house of prayer to street corner to valley to mountain top to bring this revival to all the places where the people gather.

V’tishlach b’rachah b’ma’aseh l’vavchem – May God bless the work of your hearts as you hold the pain, the hope, the struggle, and the dreams of each person you meet and each story you hear on your way.

V’tishlach b’rachah b’ma’aseh sechleichem – May God bless the work of your minds so that your words are always thoughtful, your actions sacredly strategic, wise, kind, that your journey helps us get clearer and smarter and ever more effective in healing suffering and advancing opportunity and equality for all people.

May God fill you with hope, may you go safely and return safely, and may your journey truly be the shofar call, the divine defibrillator, the revival and the awakening that we so badly need. Amen.