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One Giant Leap: Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

On July 20, 1969 at 10:56 PM as a boy one week shy of his 11th birthday, and filled with wonder, I watched Neil Armstrong take “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

In 1999, as the century was ending, the eminent historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was asked to name the most significant human achievement of the 20th century. In ranking the events, Schlesinger said, “I put DNA and penicillin and the computer and the microchip in the first ten because they’ve transformed civilization. But in 500 years, if the United States still exists, most of its history will have faded to invisibility… The one thing that for which this century will be remembered 500 years from now was: This was the century when we began the exploration of space.”

How, then, should we appreciate and celebrate this epic milestone in the history of our species?

This summer the Smithsonian published a piece by Charles Fishman called, Inside America’s Greatest Adventure – A New Behind-the Scenes View of Apollo 11’s Unlikely Triumph 50 Years Ago, an excerpt from his new book One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon. Fishman acknowledges that many Americans questioned why we were going to the moon when we couldn’t handle our problems on Earth. He admits how much of the space race was caught up in Cold War politics.  But Fishman goes on to say: “When President John F. Kennedy declared in 1961 that the United States would go to the Moon, he was committing the nation to do something we simply couldn’t do. We didn’t have the tools or the equipment- the rockets or the launch pads; the spacesuits or the computers….We didn’t even know how to fly to the Moon….Ten thousand problems had to be solved to get us to the Moon. Every one of those challenges was tackled and mastered between May 1961 and July 1969.”

For many, Apollo restored our faith that America could think big. It restored our faith that we could tackle great problems. It restored our faith that we could work together.

When Armstrong stepped on the moon, billions watched and cheered across the world- the largest TV audience in history. For a fleeting moment Apollo united a country divided over Vietnam, and civil rights, and nuclear disarmament. For a fleeting moment Apollo united the world.

But there is something else that Apollo bequeathed to us. On Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders took what is one of the most famous pictures of all time, the photo of the Earth floating in space above the moon. It was the first full-color photo of the Earth from space, later entitled Earthrise. This single, sensational image is credited with helping inspire the modern environmental movement.

What strikes you right away is color. There is our planet, a brilliant sphere of blue and white, in a sea of utter black. Nearly a half century ago pioneering astronomer Fred Hoyle uttered these prophetic words: “Once a photograph of the earth, taken from the outside is available… a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.”

Astronaut Loren Action said, “Looking outward to the blackness of space, I saw majesty but no welcome. Below us was a welcoming planet. There, contained in the thin, moving, incredibly fragile shell of the biosphere is everything that is dear to [us]….”

Astronaut Sultan bin Salman may have put it best when he said, “The first day or so we all pointed to our countries “The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were aware of only one earth.”

What these modern day explorers are telling us is a truth at once ancient, but radically new. Something we have always known, but never really understood. We are one earth. We are one planet. We are one world. We are incredibly diverse but utterly inter-dependent.

I consider this not just the environmental, but the ultimate spiritual legacy of Apollo. We took one giant leap in our understanding of our own home- we need to work together in so many ways to cherish it and protect it.

Someday we will populate the solar system and beyond…that is also Apollo’s legacy. Yet even as we reach for the stars we are still tethered to our earth home like a new born babe to its mother.

On this 50th anniversary of our greatest adventure- thank you to Neil Armstrong  and Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins; to those who walked on the moon, and to those who walked behind them to make it possible, and after them to build on their accomplishment. Thank you for showing us a new world. Thank you for our greater appreciation of our own world. Thank you for showing us what is possible when we dream. Thank you for showing us the dawn of our collective future.


Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz serves Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia, New Jersey.

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Passover Pesach Social Justice

In Every Generation

A Reading for Pesach 5778*

In every generation

We come out of Egypt.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We stand up to Pharaoh.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We part the waters.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We march toward the Promised Land.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We teach our children.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

Our children teach us.

Let freedom ring.

In every generation

We march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

 

In this generation

Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech- we march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

In this generation

Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland- we march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

In this generation

Two hundred sixty five million guns fill our country- we march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

In this generation

Ninety seven souls die from gun violence each and every day- we march for our lives.

Let freedom ring.

In this generation

Young and old, black and white, Jew and gentile…said enough; enough.

Let freedom ring.

 

*Participants at the seder are invited to echo the repeating lines.

Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz serves The Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia and Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia, NJ.

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News

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Prophets: A 50th Anniversary Appreciation

The night before his death on April 4, 1968 an exhausted Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the Masonic Temple in Memphis. The night was stormy, tornado warnings had been issued, and the crowd was small in the giant hall. “But it doesn’t matter now…because I’ve been to the mountaintop,” King famously declared in a trembling voice, “And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I have seen the Promised Land. And 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.”

Martin Luther King, JR. reminded the American people with his unforgettable last words that though a man may die, a dream does not. And it is no happenstance that King was referencing Moses, the greatest of the Hebrew prophets. Time and again King drew inspiration from the prophets of old.

In his famous Letter from Birmingham City Jail (1963) King wrote, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns…so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.”

In his iconic I Have A Dream speech at the March on Washington of the same year King quotes the prophet Amos: “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream (5:24),” and Isaiah: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” (40:4-5).

Perhaps his most stirring words about the prophets were spoken by King at an address to the Synagogue Council of America on December 5, 1966:“When silence threatens to take the power of decision out of our hands”, King began, “…one looks into history for the courage to speak even in an unpopular cause. Looming as ethical giants are those extraordinary of men, the Hebrew prophets. They did not believe that conscience is a still, small voice. They believed that conscience thunders or it does not speak at all. They were articulate, passionate, and fearless, attacking injustice and corruption whether the guilty be kings or their own unrepentant people. Without physical protection, scornful of risks evoked by their unpopular messages, they went among the people with no shield other than truth.”

King stirringly concludes: “Today we particularly need the Hebrew prophets because they taught that to love God was to love justice; that each human being has an inescapable obligation to denounce evil where he sees it and to defy a ruler who commands him to break the covenant. The Hebrew prophets are needed today because decent people must be imbued with the courage to speak the truth, to realize that silence may temporarily preserve status or security but to live with a lie is a gross affront to God. The Hebrew prophets are needed today because we need their flaming courage; we need them because the thunder of their fearless voices is the only sound stronger than the blasts of bombs and clamor of war….”

In a recent interview historian Taylor Branch describes the influence of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s book, The Prophets (1963) on King, noting, “He became like a driven Old Testament prophet….[King and] all those guys used to carry around Heschel’s book. They really identified with the prophets.” Branch adds that “Heschel’s seminal study of the prophets…gained the eager devotion of King and his fellow pastors.” Many of us are familiar with the iconic picture of Heschel and King marching together in Selma, and Heschel’s remark that “I felt like my feet were praying”.

Fifty years after his untimely death the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. inspires and challenges us anew. His devotion to prophetic ideals bids us in the Jewish community to rediscover our outspoken biblical forbears and their quest for justice. How can we walk the prophetic path in these troubled times? How can we speak truth to power? How can we “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly”? For as Hillel said, “But leave it to Israel; if they are not prophets, yet they are the children of prophets.”

Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz is director of The Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia, and serves Congregation Adas Emuno in Leonia, NJ.