Friends, colleagues and neighbors, Berukhim Habaim, welcome to our congregation and thank you for taking the time to celebrate with us this evening. As the rabbi of Congregation Torat El, I feel honored that we could host this wonderful celebration and remembrance of Dr. King, and I am delighted to have all of our guests with us tonight as we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and take a few moments to recognize our collective responsibility to carry out Dr. King’s holy work by striving to bring justice and equality into our world each and every day. I also want to thank Jeff Donner, Stuart Kopperweiss, Jerry Russel, Cantor Siegel, our Executive Director Pam Cardullo, and all of our staff for their efforts in putting this even together as well as the Bnai Shalom-Beth El foundation for sponsoring our event this evening.
As I was thinking about our gathering this evening, and King’s legacy, I was struck by the timing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day each year with our Jewish scriptural cycle. For those who are unfamiliar, in the Jewish tradition we read a section of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, each week. Each section is broken up into a few chapters and every fall we start reading at the beginning of the Torah. We read through the entire scroll until the next fall comes along and we celebrate our New Year. That means that the scriptural readings each week, and each year, always appear in same order. Why share all of this? Because right now in our Torah reading cycle we are in the beginnings of the Exodus narrative – in Hebrew, the book of Shemot. And it is in this narrative that we find the beginnings of the very thing we are here to celebrate tonight: the value of freedom for all human beings, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation.
In the portion that we finished reading on our last Sabbath together, the Torah tells us that God heard the moaning of the Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt, and God remembered God’s covenant with the children of Israel. And what does God do? God sends Moses, His faithful servant, to the Pharaoh to tell him to free the Israelite slaves.
Moses’s initial response is less than positive: “Who me? But I am of impaired speech? I can’t do it,” he says. But God tells Moses that he must do it. Sending along Aaron for help, God insists that Moses must try to fight for freedom. And God insists that this freedom has a purpose. Moses is to work to free the children of Israel so that they might worship and serve God.
As Jews, we often like to say that the Exodus narrative is our “master story.” It is a story that defines who we are as a people. We are told, in Deuteronomy, to care for the poor, widow, and stranger because we too were strangers in the land of Egypt. We are told to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, because in so doing we are remembering to celebrate the freedoms that we cherish so deeply each week. We are continually being reminded, in the Jewish tradition, of our beginnings as slaves in Egypt so that we might work hard, each and every day, to celebrate freedom by pursuing justice, righteousness and equality for all who do not yet have freedom. And isn’t all of this, after all, what Dr. King was all about? Reminding us to continually fight for freedom.
The Exodus narrative reminds us that we must fight for this freedom regardless of our shortcomings. There can be no excuses. Yes, Moses had a speech impediment, and at first he wasn’t particularly excited to go before the Pharaoh, but he went anyway. It also reminds us that our freedom is to be purposeful because it is a freedom that comes with the responsibility of serving and worshiping God.
What exactly does that mean? What does it mean to connect our freedom to our faith? In part it means gathering together for wonderful ceremonies like this more often, to give thanks to God in this type of setting for the wonderful blessings that we have and to remind ourselves of the important work on this earth that we have yet to do when it comes to caring for others. But remembering that our freedom comes with a responsibility towards God is also about remembering each and every day that those with whom we interact are holy. That, as Genesis teaches, all human beings were made in God’s image, and therefore deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Eyzehu Mechubad, “Who is truly honored?” ask our rabbis. The person who shows honor and respect to all of God’s creatures (Avot 4:1). That is our job as free people, and that is our responsibility.
This takes strength. This takes courage. And it takes dedication. Dr. King understood this, and found in our shared tradition a faith that sustained him in this great and holy work. In a book entitled, Shared Dreams, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Jewish Community, I read of a fundraising event that Dr. King once attended at a synagogue. The rabbi asked him, “From what source do you draw strength to climb the steep hill strewn with obstacles and danger?” King responded:
“You and I draw waters from the same spring…from the belief in a God of Love, Mercy, and Justice. In the Jewish Prayer Book, I find words which express the essence of the Christian hope and promise: ‘O may all, created in Thine image, recognize that they are brethren, so that one in spirit and one in fellowship, they may be forever united before Thee. Then shall Thy kingdom be established on earth and the world of Thine ancient seer be fulfilled. The Lord will reign forever and ever.” (33)
In other words, King’s faith in his work in part came from a recognition that there was a shared language and shared values between Judaism and his Christian faith. And I would add today that we know these values are found in other traditions and belief systems as well. The values of freedom, of equality, of the pursuit of justice and righteousness for all. The values that go all the way back to the story of God, Moses, Pharaoh and the children of Israel. The values which remind us, and indeed demand of us, each and every day to find ways to ensure that we are worshipping God through the work of our hands, as well as our hearts. The values which remind us that fighting for equality and fairness is a never ending pursuit. But a pursuit for which we are all responsible.
Our rabbis teach us that we are not obligated to complete all of the challenging tasks involved in healing this world, but we are also not free to ignore them. That is what we come to remember and celebrate tonight. We are brothers and sisters in this work. And while there is much that we have to be thankful for in this country, there is also much work still to do as we seek to create a society that is more tolerant, kind, compassionate, and caring. A society in which people learn to value, listen to, and seek to understand the other instead of vilify or demean them as if they weren’t also created in God’s image. We have our work cut out for us, but together, it is my hope and prayer that we will be able to eventually realize King’s dream.
Let me conclude by going back to the beginning, back to the Exodus and the leadership of Moses. Moses and Dr. King had a connection that spanned history, something that Dr. King seems to have felt as well. In his last major speech, the day before he was assassinated, Dr. King said:
“I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” (Shared Dreams, 191)
Moses took the slaves out of Egypt. King dedicated his life, and lost his life, in a fight to rid this country of bigotry, intolerance, and racism. Both had God in their hearts, and acted with God through their deeds. The question for us tonight is what will WE DO, what must WE DO, to carry on their legacy?