“Call a solemn assembly, gather the people, consecrate the congregation.” —Joel 2:15-16

“...a potent, sustained movement must rest on more than economic and political principles. It also must draw upon the values that emanate from our deepest human emotions and desires for justice and community. The call for spiritual morality, whether advanced by organized religion or secular humanist yearnings, has played a decisive role in leading struggles throughout history. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s and the abolitionist movement of a century earlier are but two examples of struggles that were propelled forward by powerful calls for spiritual morality. Today, the embryonic movements that fuse direct action with a spiritually based call for justice offer similar promise.” —Jonathan Rosenblum

“The real revolutionary power . . . lies not in deploying a massive army of unanimous followers for this or that radical policy preference, but in transforming people from consumers, victims, and exploiters into responsible citizens, extending their horizons and deepening their understanding, engaging their capacities, their suppressed anger and need in the cause of justice.” —Hannah Fenichel Pitkin and Sara M. Shumer

“From the example of your activities, your contemporaries will derive courage and enthusiasm, from you they will get the strength to build up that which seemed never to have been built up and never to be built up, and your activities will lay the foundation on which even the very last generation will build on and on.” —Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch commentary on Isaiah 58:12