Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This week I had the privilege of participating in the Women’s Rabbinic Network  convention in Memphis TN. Our bi-annual convention of Reform women rabbis from across North America (and one colleague from the former Soviet Union who now lives in Israel), gathered for 4 days of rich learning, beautiful praying and singing, and sisterhood and support. I was privileged to work on planning and leading the opening and closing ritual moments and part of our tefillot (worship) together.
 
As part of our gathering in Memphis, we went to the Lorraine Hotel where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the evening of April 4, 1968 and the Civil Rights museum. It was very moving to be in Memphis during the week of Dr. King’s birthday. Had he lived, he would have been 84 years old. As we stood together in Memphis at that place where we all lost so much,  we reflected on his life and legacy, on what a rare gift he gave to the world with his courage and his passion.

On Tuesday, Dr. King’s birthday, there was an ice storm in Memphis.  Many of the downtown area shops and businesses closed, sending their workers home early.  At dinner we rose and gave a standing ovation to the hotel wait staff, who had not gone home early, and were there serving our meal, and tending to the needs of hotel guests. (full disclosure, we do this at every one of our WRN conventions, because just as we thank God for food in the Motzi and Birkat hamazon, we are mindful that it is through many hands that food comes to our table each and every day.) As we stood, I was reminded of why Dr. King had gone to Memphis in April of 1968 -  sanitation workers in Memphis had staged a walkout to protest unequal wages and working conditions.  Black workers were paid significantly less than whites and received no pay if they stayed home in and weather, while their white counterparts were paid. So many of them were compelled to work in rain and snow storms. King had come to Memphis to prepare for a March the following Monday in support of these striking workers.

Our parashah this week is parashat Bo – “Bo el Paroah”, begins the text, as God says to Moses, “Go to Pharoah”, for I have hardened his heart. God tells Moses to go to Pharoah, his heart hardened, and ask Pharoah to let God’s people go forth from slavery to freedom. It is the message of God to Moses and the teaching of God in Exodus that led Dr. King to have the faith to dream of the end of racial segregation and racial discrimination and achieve equality through the civil rights movement.

Moses does as God tells him and goes to Pharoah demanding that Phaorah let the Jewish people go. But Pharaoh, his heart hardened, responds to Moses’ requests by rebuking him and increasing their workload, making life harder for the Jewish slaves. When the civil rights movement began to gain support, southern whites responded by making the lives of black Americans more difficult, threatening and assaulting civil rights leaders with violence, ultimately taking Dr. King’s life.
Many Jews felt compelled to respond to the fight against racial segregation and discrimination in America. We remembered the teachings of Torah and the call of the rabbis – “you shall not stand by while your neighbor bleeds”, “remember the poor and the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”. We knew what it was like to experience discrimination and hatred. So many Jews felt called by faith and familiarity to serve in the cause of racial justice and equality.

On the march from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walked in the front row with King, a spiritual partner in the struggle against racism. On a conference table in the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious action Center building, black and Jewish lawyers drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The president of the NAACP at the time was Kivie Kaplan, a prominent member of the Reform movement’s social action commission. Today, Rabbi David Saperstein, the head of the URJ’s Religious Action Center in Washington, is the only non-African American on the board of the NAACP.

This coming August marks 50 years since Rev. King’s galvanizing, inspirational speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and 150 years since President Lincoln signed into law the Emancipation Proclamation.

50 years after Dr. King spoke of the dream that he had for this great country, civil rights and the fight for equality remain an important issue.  Dr. King’s dream has not yet been achieved when we continue to see efforts to disenfranchise voters.  Dr. King’s dream has not yet been achieved when there is still discrimination in this country towards people of different colors, religions, or ethnic origins.  Dr. King’s dream has not yet been achieved when there is discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation.  But he had the courage and the faith and the conviction to go forward, and his legacy still burns clearly today as we celebrate his birthday this weekend.  He had the courage and faith that Moses had to “Bo El Paroah”, to go to Phaorah and say “let me people go.”  His work in the world is now ours to do. As our rabbis teach in Mishna Pirke Avot 2:20-21 “Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, vlo atah ben chorin lhibateil mimena. “It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. As we honor Dr. King this weekend, let us remember that it is our responsibility to carry on his legacy.