Open Our Hearts

Rabbi Marvin Schwab

Opening Invocation for the 2012 Pro-choice Rally, January 23, 2012

As I stand before you today, my presence makes the most important and eloquent statement:  There is more that one religious perspective on women’s rights, and women’s right to choose.  I represent an ancient religious tradition and one that stands firmly in support of many rights for women.

So we pray:

Our God and the God of our Mothers and Fathers, open our hearts.

Open our hearts to you.

Open our hearts to the wisdom that you have given us.

Open our hearts to the idea that you created us, male and female, help mates to each other.

Open our hearts, our thoughts and our minds to the diverse, yet Divine paths you set before us in life.

Open our hearts, and thoughts and minds to the fact that while we may all hallow you, we may each see you very differently.

Open our hearts, and thoughts and minds to the idea that by our actions we are partners with you in creating the world.

Open our hearts, and thoughts and minds to idea that you made us to be free.

Open our hearts, and thoughts and minds that our freedom includes the freedom of choosing.

Open our hearts, and thoughts and minds to understand that that freedom includes the ability, the right and the obligation, to evolve in our understanding of the world.

Open our hearts, and minds and thoughts to break the bonds of enslavement to narrow and crippling concepts which lead us to seek to control and enslave one another.

Open our hearts, and thoughts and minds to empower the individual.

Open the hearts, and thoughts and minds of others to respect that empowerment, and the world of love and respect that it creates.

Open our hearts, and thoughts and minds.

Open our hearts, God of our Mothers and Fathers.

Open our hearts.

Amen