This is the sermon I am giving tonight at Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart, Florida.

This coming Wednesday, August 28, will be the fiftieth anniversary of what is possibly the greatest speech ever delivered by an American orator not named Abraham Lincoln. It was on that date in 1963 that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 

President John F. Kennedy was working at the time to advance civil rights legislation. Kennedy hoped that King would give a speech that would make a moral case for civil rights, but without the calls for violence or civil disobedience that had alienated some white voters and members of Congress.

Historians of the period now say that in the days leading up to the march, Kennedy was nervous that many people would be deterred from attending. Police up and down the east coast harassed Black men and women traveling to Washington for the event. If the march drew a disappointingly small crowd, or if it devolved into violence, Kennedy worried that it would derail his efforts to pass civil rights and voting rights legislation in Congress.

But, when the day of the March came, the crowd was anything but disappointing. More than 250,000 people, about three quarters of them Black, spread across the National Mall in the heart of Washington. People who were there said they were awed by the immense size of the peaceful gathering. 

King was the sixteenth of the eighteen speakers at the rally. The tone of the speech, as Dr. King began it, was calm and stately. He made reference to  the Emancipation Proclamation in its centennial year. King stated that the proclamation amounted to a one-hundred-year-old pledge to Black America that had not been fulfilled. “The Negro,” he said, “is still not free.” 

King spoke of the Declaration of Independence as a promissory note that had been bequeathed to every American with an assurances of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Only, he said, the promise to Black America had been defaulted upon. The note, when brought before the halls of justice for redemption by Black Americans, had been returned unpaid and marked with the label “insufficient funds.” King wondered if this was possible. Could it be that the wealthiest and freest nation on earth did not have the resources to make good on its promise of liberty to all its citizens?

King then declared that the purpose of the march was “to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now.” The time had come, he said, to bring justice to America and an end racial discrimination. 

As King appeared to close his address, he warned members of his audience against the temptation to use violence in pursuing their cause. He said that the movement would work cooperatively with white allies and would not falter in its resolve until all objectives had been realized — an end to police brutality, an end to legal discrimination, an end to forced segregation, and an end to abuses against the voting rights of Black Americans. 

And he thanked people for their sacrifice. He said, “I am not unmindful that that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest [has] left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.” Fifty years after the speech, we may be tempted to think that the struggle for civil rights and equality under the law was won with lofty rhetoric and compelling arguments. No. It was won by people who were willing to put their live on the line and to suffer for the rights that were rightfully theirs. We should never forget that. It is the only way to win real change.

Up to that point, King had delivered a solid, confident and decorous speech. He had given his audience an articulate exposition of the cause for which they rallied and strengthened their resolve to march on. He also made clear to those who were wary of the civil rights movement that its leaders would be bound by the bonds of civility. However, just at the point where it seemed that King was winding up his stately remarks, the speech took on a different tone.

Some say that it was at this point that the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson yelled out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” Whether King heard those words or not, he departed from the prepared remarks he had written and slowly shifted into the style of a preacher on the pulpit. He said, “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”

When I hear those words now, fifty years after King spoke them, I feel the goosebumps down my neck. King spent the last five minutes of his speech painting a picture of America, not as it was, but as it should have been — and as it still should be. He talked about a day when “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” He talked about his vision that “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The crowd began to sway and cry out in response to King’s words. And when he quoted the song, “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing,” the National Mall was turned into a giant revival meeting. 

King said, “From every mountain side, let freedom ring… And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heights of the Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

It is in this moment of the speech, I think, that we are most able to remember King as a prophet. It is not a title that I use lightly. In the Hebrew Bible, a prophet is a person who speaks the will of God to a people who need to hear it. That is what King was that day, and on many other days, too.

Have you ever noticed that in most of his speeches and writing, the Baptist minister, Martin Luther King, rarely quoted the Christian Scriptures? His favorite biblical texts were the prophets. In the “Dream” speech, he quotes the Hebrew prophets Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah, and the Hebrew book of Psalms. Even in the parts of the speech that King extemporized without written notes, he quoted them with near perfection. In contrast, in the entire speech, there is not a single direct quote from the New Testament. 

That may have been, in part, an influence from King’s close friendship with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel’s book, The Prophets, published the previous year, is considered one of the masterpieces of 20th century Jewish scholarship and it was one of King’s favorite books. Heschel would later march alongside of King in Selma, Alabama, and he considered that to be one of the great religious experiences of his life. From the depth of his understanding of the Jewish prophetic tradition, Heschel wrote that in the gross inequality of American society, “Few are guilty, but all are responsible.” In Heschel, King heard a powerful voice that called on all Americans, Black and white, Jews and gentiles, to identify the call for civil rights with the call of the Bible’s prophets for justice.

Now, in English, when we hear the words “prophet” and “prophecy,” we often think of a person who can predict the future. But that is not the Bible’s understanding of what a prophet is. Much more than a person who can see the future, the biblical prophets were men who could see the present — people whose vision penetrated the lies and half-truths that a society tells itself to hide its inequities. King, like those prophets of old, could see the truth of his day and name it for his contemporaries in a way that would stir people to self-reflection, re-evaluation, and action to create a better reality. That is what a prophet does.

You certainly could not say that King’s words have predicted the future — not if you imagine that the world we are living in right now is that future. One hundred fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation, fifty years after “I Have a Dream,” the promise is still unfulfilled. The promissory note still has not been redeemed. Even though we have an African-American president, and even though the legal discrimination and forced segregation of those days are no more, we still live in a country in which Black and Hispanic people are about twice as likely to live in poverty as are white people. We live in a country in which the gap in wealth that separates white and Black Americans actually has grown wider over the last thirty years. 

We live in a country in which an increasing number of states have passed voting laws that make it less likely that non-white citizens will vote. We live in a country in which the Supreme Court recently struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, the very law that Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy worked so hard to pass, and which was, I might add, drafted in the conference room of our own Reform Movement's Religious Action Center. We still live in a country in which young Black and Hispanic men must learn to live with the fact that they will be judged with suspicion just for walking into a store, driving down a street, or walking peacefully in a white neighborhood. Especially in Florida, we know what can happen as a result of that suspicion and distrust. 

It should not be so. This week’s Torah portion (Ki Tavo) once again reminds us that our ancestors were persecuted and oppressed (Deuteronomy 26:5-6), and that it is our duty, therefore, to identify with the plight of the vulnerable and the stranger, to freely offer them a portion of our riches (ibid, v. 12), and not to hate or to mistreat them. 

It has been a long time since Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to us, but we are not finished listening to him. The fierce urgency of Now should still be upon us. Fifty years ago this week, King concluded his greatest speech — America’s greatest speech of the past century — by hoping for the day when “all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”

Until that day comes, we will not be free. Until that day comes, we as Jews still have much work to do. Shabbat shalom.


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The Torah and the Constitution

I'm on vacation this week in Massachusetts. We took my eight-year-old daughter today to see the monument at the Old North Bridge in the town of Concord. 

If you've forgotten some of your American history, let me remind you that this is the spot where the American Revolution began with the Battle of Concord on April 19, 1775. The poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, immortalized the battle in his poem, "Concord Hymn," as the "shot heard 'round the world."

Emerson wrote those words in 1837 for the dedication of the monument that now stands on the east side of the Old North Bridge. Just a few yards away from that obelisk — easily overlooked — there is a much smaller monument dedicated to two British soldiers who died in the Battle of Concord. The British, in the fury of the battle and facing a long retreat back to Boston, were not able to recover the bodies of these two men. Instead, the American colonists buried them close to the place where they fell. 

To this day, two small British flags (accurate to the time of the Revolution) are placed on the spot. An inscription bears words from a poem by James Russell Lowell:

They came three thousand miles and died,
to keep the past upon its throne:
Unheard, beyond the ocean tide,
their English Mother made her moan.

My eight-year-old daughter had a hard time identifying the country against whom the Americans fought a bloody war to win their independence. To her, Great Britain (now the United Kingdom) is the country where they make Doctor Who, her older sister's favorite television show. It is the place where her mother's favorite author, Jane Austen, lived and wrote. Hardly the stuff of bitter enmity. 

The small monument to the two British soldiers, also, says something about the attitude of contemporary New Englanders to their "English Mother."  They love their ancestral connection to Britain and, as in Lowell's poem, they are much more inclined to think of the Red Coats who fell here with compassion than with bitterness. After the long decades, and especially since the experience of two world wars, Americans now view their one-time arch-villain as a partner and beloved cousin across the waters. 

This week's Torah portion (Ki Tetze) suggests that this is the proper way for enemies to be  reconciled into friendship. The lesson comes in a surprising verse that says, "You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land" (Deuteronomy 23:8). Even someone with only a casual familiarity with the Torah will know that the Israelites had more reason to hate Egypt than any other nation. It was Egypt's Pharaoh who enslaved Israel with cruel servitude and ordered their baby boys to be thrown into the Nile. Why would this same Torah command Israel "do not abhor an Egyptian"?

The medieval commentator Rashi explains that the commandment applies to those Egyptians who convert to Judaism. They are permitted to do so and are welcomed into the fold of the Jewish people, as are all converts. Rashi says, though, that our compassion toward Egypt is not only because of the many centuries that separate us from the ordeal of slavery. It is also out of remembrance of the fact that, before we were slaves, the Egyptians took us in with friendship when we were on the brink of starvation in our own land. 

Torah commands us to remember the best about other people, even of our enemies, and to welcome them as brothers and sisters. Just as Americans have long forgotten the hatred we once had toward the British — and now remember only the gifts of language, culture and fellowship in arms — so should we as Jews foreswear from hating those who once were our enemies. 

In contemporary times, we have seen this happen. Today, Germany is one of Israel's strongest allies. One hardly ever hears Jews speak scornfully about contemporary Germany, and Jews accept the many sincere expressions of contrition that Germany has offered for its Nazi past. You would think that if the Jewish people could forgive Germany, there is no nation that we would not be willing to see in the best possible light, to accept, and to forgive.

The Jewish people today certainly have enemies. The commandment, "You shall not abhor an Egyptian," does not require us to love people who are trying to kill us. But, it should be a reminder to us that there is no enmity that cannot be overcome, whether it is a personal enemy or a national enemy. Americans build monuments to British soldiers who once shot at us. Jews find friendship with a country that once committed genocide against us. Surely, we can recognize in our hearts the ability to find reconciliation and peace with those we once saw as enemies. 

It has been commanded of us to do so.


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Thirty-nine years ago tonight, I was an eleven-year-old kid at summer camp. The camp director rang a bell heard across campus telling all campers to gather in the recreation hall. We had no idea why. 

When we took our seats, one row for each cabin, we saw that a television had been set up on the stage for us to watch. On that black and white television, I watched the President of the United States announce that he would resign his office as of noon the following day.

Richard Nixon became the only U.S. President ever to resign. He had been caught covering up a break-in, ordered by the White House, at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Nixon would later justify the break-in and the cover-up by saying, "If the President does it, that means it’s not illegal." In the end, Nixon was destroyed by his belief that his will as the elected President was superior to the law and the Constitution. He believe that he was above the law. Nixon thus became democracy's worst nightmare.

Oddly enough, it is a nightmare that is anticipated in this week's Torah portion (Shoftim). Moses warned the Israelites that, in the future, if they wanted to have a king, they should be very careful that he not be allowed to accumulate too much military power or wealth, and that he always should accept in humility the law of the Torah as his guide:

Nixon, and those who aided him in abrogating the law and the Constitution, were exactly the kinds of leaders that Moses wanted to warn us about. They believed that their election meant there was nothing that stood above them or that could limit their power. There was no Torah — no authority higher than their own desires — that they would keep as a touchstone to determine whether their actions were right and just. Their arrogance led them to believe they were limitless.

I'm not sure what America has learned from the disaster of the Nixon presidency that ended thirty-nine years ago today. Since then, we have seen other Presidents who have usurped power. We have learned that we need to be skeptical of our leaders and we have learned to expect the worst from politicians. However, I don't think we have learned the central truth of Moses' teaching — that great power requires great humility, and that real leaders set aside their own interests in order to pursue a higher truth.

We have been warned.


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Today is the first day of Elul, the month of the Jewish calendar that immediately proceeds Rosh Hashanah and the Days of Awe. The month of Elul begins the period of introspection and seeking forgiveness that prepares us for Yom Kippur. During this month, it is traditional to sound the shofar at the end of each weekday morning services as a kind of spiritual alarm clock to rouse us to renewed awareness.

Yet, I know what this time of year means to many American Jews. If you are a member of a Jewish congregation, the beginning of the month of Elul is a time to think about reconnecting with your Jewish community after the long summer. But, for those 70% of American Jews who are not affiliated with a congregation, this is the time of year you might ask yourself the question, "Where, if anywhere, do I fit in?" The American Jewish community has a lot of missing pieces. 

Congregational leaders often assume that unaffiliated Jews have made the choice not to care about Judaism and not to value the Jewish community. They think those pieces are missing from the puzzle because they have decided that they just don't want to be a part of it. But my experience is different. I encounter a lot of unaffiliated Jews who crave a connection, but they despair that they cannot seem to find a fit.

Some of these unaffiliated Jews anticipate rejection because of intermarriage. Some are searching for spiritual answers in life, but are put off by congregations that don't seem to address their questions. Some are just convinced that synagogue membership is too expensive or that the culture of congregations is too cliquey. Some have had bad experiences with previous congregations or previous rabbis and don't want to get burned again. There are more barriers facing unaffiliated Jews than many people imagine. 

So, at this time of year, many unaffiliated Jews wonder if it is really worth the effort to try. They think about the hassle of paying for High Holy Day tickets at a congregation where they may not feel welcomed, or where they might get badgered about joining. Still, they might remember positive associations with Judaism from their childhood, or hope that there is something meaningful to be experienced on Yom Kippur this year, despite the negative experiences of their past. Will it be enough to get them to walk through the synagogue doors?

This year, on this first day of Elul, I ask those who do feel connected and do feel part of a meaningful Jewish community, to think about those who are wondering whether it's worth the effort. Think about the experiences you have had that have made you feel connected. Remember how being part of Jewish community has been one of the most joyful and fulfilling parts of your life. Be mindful of how living and learning Torah has brought depth and meaning to your soul. Think then, also, about how you can help somebody else have a similar experience. 

Invite someone who feels disconnected from Judaism to have dinner with your family on Erev Rosh Hashanah. Ask someone to come to services as your guest. Encourage a Jewish teen who is on the periphery to go to a youth group event with your kids. Invite someone to enter into the social circle of your temple friends. Suggest that they sign up for an adult education class. Just forward this post to a friend and ask, "Is this you? Can I help?" The greatest mitzvah you can do this year, and the greatest act of repentance you can do on behalf of the Jewish community, might be to help put some of the pieces back together.

Rosh Chodesh tov. Have a good new month.


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Today, on what is usually my day off, I ended up visiting a 91-year-old woman in hospice who is preparing for life's final journey. I then went to a children's hospital to offer encouragement and comfort to a fourteen year-old girl who is fighting a dangerous infection. 

The contrasts in the two visits were obvious. The common themes, though, of struggle, hope, meaning and acceptance, also were clear to me as I drove home from an unexpectedly long day. There are times in this profession when I think somebody must be trying to tell me something. 

We usually think of life as being a straight-line progression from birth to youth, from young adulthood to middle age, from old age to death. We imagine that each of the several stages has its own challenges, and that each is distinct from the next. It doesn't really work that way.

The woman I saw in hospice today is coping with pain. She is experiencing fear, but she also has enough presence to deal with it with nobility and acceptance. She is genuinely grateful for the love that surrounds her as her family has come to her side.

The odd thing is, I can say the exact same things about the fourteen year-old girl. She also shows courage and nobility in facing pain. She also is able to calm her fears in the awareness of her family's love. As I meet people and see people facing different challenges in life, the things they have in common stand out in my mind more strongly than the differences. 

We human beings are all locked in the same predicament. Our lives do not move in straight lines. They move in circles of hurt and healing, despair and hope, fear and courage. The same themes recur throughout life.

Through it all, we develop an understanding of how to cope with this twirling, cycling life. We see that life is not always easy. We sense that the difficulties can be overcome when met with a combination of defiance and acceptance. We discover that we all need the same things — loving people to listen to us and care for us, a framework to understand what our life means to us, and a hopeful sense that our lives amount to more than the temporary oddity of limbs that can move. We need purpose, meaning, and love.

This is the great lesson I see in Judaism's approach to life. Our tradition is painfully honest about life's sorrows. There is no denial in Judaism of how unfair life can be, of the magnitude of evil, or of the pain of grief. In spite of these truths, Judaism insists that we can know true and deep joy. It is not the forgetful joy of pretending that life is always wonderful. Rather, it is the joy of overcoming hardships, the joy of loving through pain, the joy of understanding despite the abyss of our ignorance, and the joy of the courage to hope. 

Today, I saw all of that in two women's faces — one old and one young.

It's almost as if someone is trying to tell me something. On a day when I would have been perfectly happy to stay home, pay the bills, pet the dog, and watch the ballgame, I got called away to do something else. It is the terrible and wonderful habit of this profession to pull me out of the ordinary and into awareness of what we human beings all have in common.

God, I am so grateful for this job. Thank You, again, for the reminder.


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Meaning and Joy
Letting Go

We live in an age of individualism. We Americans teach our children from an early age that they are unique and special. We encourage them to grow into an identity of self-confidence. We want them, above everything else, to believe in themselves. 

It is no surprise, then, that many of our children grow up determined to succeed and ready to overcome every obstacle. However, many of them also grow into adults who believe that their every opinion and belief is inherently valid — even when it is unfounded and uninformed. Many act as if they have the right to live as they choose and to answer to no authority beyond themselves, regardless of the effect their choices have on others.

You can see the strengths and weaknesses of our romance with individualism. Our society produces people with tremendous drive and ambition, but also people who cannot see past their own egos. Often, it seems, they are the same people. There are a few business entrepreneurs, politicians, and Wall Street wheeler dealers who come to my mind when I think of this type.

It might seem reasonable to assume that one quality necessitates the other. We might think that it is our arrogance that produces our dauntless ambition, and that success naturally leads to egotism. I think that is a false assumption. 

There is classical interpretation of the opening lines of this week's Torah portion (Re'eh) that speaks to the possibility — and, perhaps, the need — for balance between our drive to succeed and our responsibilities to others. Being ambitious does not need to make you a jerk.

The portion opens with the words, "See, this day I set before you blessing and curse" (Deuteronomy 11:26). The voice of the text is Moses giving an impassioned sermon to the Israelites who are about to enter the Land of Israel. He implores them to observe God's commandments, and thereby receive blessing, but not to disobey and suffer a curse instead. 

Commentators from ancient times have observed a peculiarity in this verse. In Hebrew, the opening word, "See" (Re'eh) is in the singular, as if spoken to one person. However, the word meaning "before you" (lifneichem) is in the plural, spoken to a multitude. With this grammatical inconsistency, Moses seems to be speaking to one Israelite and to every Israelite at the same time. 

What does this teach us about individuality and responsibility? Moses speaks first to each person alone. The word, "See," in the singular, acknowledges that we each have our own way of seeing the world. We each are unique and the world benefits from our multiplicity of perspectives. Each of us has strengths and abilities that add to the richness of the world and that give each of us opportunities to excel and to achieve in ways that others cannot.

Yet, just three words later in the Hebrew, Moses reminds us that the opportunity for blessing and the danger of curse are not just for one individual alone. The consequences of our individual actions, positive and negative, are before us all in the plural. 

Our unique attributes and abilities are for each of us to discover and develop. We are invited to take pride in them and to push them to their limits. Yet, if we think that the benefits and risks of using those abilities are for ourselves alone, we are deluding ourselves. We are all in this thing called life together. 

Think about how much sense this makes and how it is proven true over and over again. The titans of Wall Street who brought about the financial crisis of 2008 did so because they thought their acumen and ability should bring material blessing to themselves alone. What we all discovered, though, is that they instead brought a curse upon our entire society. 

The ambitious politician who allows his unbridled personal cravings to rule him (yes, you know who I'm talking about), discovers that acts done in private have ramifications for thousands if not millions of other people. We humans are interconnected with each other and our individuality should not blind us to the way our actions effect one another. A society that only listens to the command to "see," given in the singular, but ignores the consequence, given in the plural, is a society built on delusion. 

Yes, we should raise our children to know that they are special. We should allow them to celebrate their uniqueness and to push their abilities to the highest they can reach. But that does not excuse us from also teaching them that they have an obligation to use those abilities for the benefit of all, not just for themselves. Our gifts are also responsibilities. The things that make each person special are also the things that bind us to one another. They command us to the duty to use our gifts to build a better world.

Great ability should not be an excuse for great selfishness. In fact, the opposite should be so. Life's true joy is in seeing that our abilities are gifts we have been given in order to share them with those who are before us. 


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