A leading Reform rabbi delivered the invocation at the opening of the Thursday session of the Democratic National Convention.
Rabbi David Saperstein, who heads the Reform movement’s Washington public policy office, the Religious Action Center, asked God to make the United States “an or lagoyim, a light unto the nations.”
Saperstein asked for God’s blessing “on all the leaders of our nation,” but he singled out by name Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who is suffering from terminal brain cancer, as well as Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).
“May your name be invoked only to inspire and unify our nation, but never to divide it,” Saperstein said.
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