Tag: tzedeksummer

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Rabbis Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Keep on Walking, Keep on Talking, Marching up to Freedom’s Land

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around

We’re gonna keep on a walkin, keep on a talkin,

Marchin up to Freedom’s Land

As we marched in the hot humid sun, a group of truly courageous and gusty Georgian women began singing this Freedom Song in beautiful harmony.  Their singing gave me strength and served as a connection to the past.  They reminded me of why I was there: to walk, to talk, and to march for justice and freedom for all.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for this journey.  Yes, I knew I would help carry the Torah during the day’s 18 mile journey, but it was the walking and the talking that truly inspired me and it was the extraordinary people that I met on my trip that will stay with me long after my feet stop aching.

Over breakfast, I sat with Royal who shared his anger that he could not join the numerous fishing and hunting clubs in town because of his skin color.  He worried about his five year old son whose best friend is white.  “What will happen when my son’s friend has a birthday party at the Fishing Club?” he asked me.  “Will the boy include my son in the birthday party or not?  Will the father turn his son into a racist or will the boy recognize the ignorance of his father’s way?”

In the morning, I walked alongside Shelly who was concerned about the next generation.  She shared that those without an education often find work as a restaurant server – making the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – barely enough to make a living.  Shelly inspired me by accepting a new job tutoring high school seniors, enabling these students to move forward with their education and their dreams.

In the afternoon, I stood by Keisha’s side.  It was a transformative moment in Keisha’s youth that led her to become an advocate for change.  She told me that she believes it is a smile, a wave of the hand, a kind word that will truly change the course of our country.  Her heart pushed her to create a new non-profit that will support future business owners and help get people back to work.

Later that day, I was honored to chant from the Torah and read these words: “If there is a needy person among you, do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin” (Deuteronomy 15:7).  Rabbi Jill Perlman shared a beautiful teaching that in order to break open a hardened heart we must first unclench our hands and reach out to each other.  Over the course of my journey, I recognized the power of not only my hands, but also my feet.  By holding on to the marchers next to me and by walking by their side, I was able to open my heart to their worries, their challenges and the injustice that pervades our society.  By being present and sharing my entire body and soul, my heart was opened to their experience.

I only marched for one day in the steamy 100 degree Georgian heat, but Royal, Shelly and Keshia are marching the entire length of the journey.  They’ve come so far already, but it’s still a long way to the Promised Land.  May the beautiful singing inspire them and continue to push us all to open our hearts and our hands, for we must keep on walking, keep on talking, and marching up to Freedom’s Land.

—

Rabbi Andy Gordon serves on the clergy team of Temple Sinai of Roslyn. 

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s blog.

 

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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Turning Justice into Righteousness

“Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof:” this is one of the most famous lines from all Scripture, lines we read this week as part of Parashat Shof’tim. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most misunderstood lines in all of Scripture. We commonly translate the text as, “Justice, Justice, You must pursue (it).” Justice is the rule of law. The scales of justice hang in every courthouse in the country. Justice is really nothing more than the best answer we have for any given legal situation, at any given point in time. “Justice” allowed slave ownership. The highest “Court of Justice” in the land affirmed it on a number of occasions … until it did not anymore. Then, a new standard of “Justice” was imposed. We are not seeking justice; we have it. What we need is righteousness, the better definition of “Tzedek.” We must pursue righteousness (the best moral answer available to us). Sometimes, following the law, may be “just,” but it is not righteous.

Monday, August 17, I joined in the NAACP’s America’s Journey for Justice; an amazing event on so many levels. As much conversation as we shared, we kept returning to the topic of the laws affirmed by government and our purveyor of justice (the courts) still allowed for discrimination and disparate treatment of minorities and women. As we walked across the Georgia countryside, we became more focused on pursuing righteousness, holding our nation’s leaders to a higher standard than the law. We marched to remind America that the Constitution of this land declared the rights to equality in opportunity and security are “unalienable.” While the law is more egalitarian than it used to be, our system of justice still has a long way to go. My 19.5 miles calling our nation’s attention to more righteous answers did not change the world, but together, our voices over 860 miles can.

—

Rabbi Marc Kline serves Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, NJ.

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s Blog.

 

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Rabbis Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Acknowledging and Transforming our Legacies

As I got off the plane in Atlanta to march in America’s Journey for Justice, I was reminded of the last time I was there. It was earlier this year. I was there with my wife and our two kids, ages 6 and 8, and my in-laws. My wife’s parents live in Boston, but my father-in-law grew up outside of Atlanta. In fact, he grew up as a Baptist, and descends from people who had lived in Georgia since before the American Revolution. His ancestors fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Members of his family owned a plantation and owned slaves.

My father-in-law hated much of that world and ultimately ended up a Jewish college professor in the Boston suburbs. But my wife grew up visiting her grandparents and extended family in Georgia. Now, we wanted to take the kids to Georgia while my parents-in-law were still able to do so. The only problem, of course, is that we also had to explain the history of racism in America to them as well. Granddaddy’s family weren’t bad people, were they?

The trip was great, including visits to the Martin Luther King National Historic Site, Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Center for Civil and Human Rights, in addition to family cemeteries, churches and homes. But the question we had to answer for our kids we also had to answer for ourselves. And, I believe, so do all white people and also all Jews (white and otherwise): what is my part in the structural inequality in this country, and what am I going to do about it?

That’s why I was so happy to join this march, as an individual and as a rabbi. Like so many of us, I am sure, I desperately want to do something. And so, going and marching, meeting people and hearing their stories, was so powerful. Sitting in a church in LaGrange, Georgia, and hearing from state leaders in the fight to protect voting rights was just different than it ever could have been from my home in New York City. And feeling like an ally of the people I met, from all over the country, could not have happened at home either. Most of what I will do in the future is to continue organizing here in New York with communities across race, class and neighborhood for better access to good education and housing. But I am more motivated to do that work because of what I felt marching through the ancestral home of my children’s granddaddy.

On our second night in LaGrange, after learning at the teach-in about barriers to voting access in Georgia, one of the marchers got into conversation with the state trooper who was sitting in the back (the march has been accompanied by copious law enforcement). She asked him what he thought about what he had just heard. We had learned that one way people can be kept from voting is by demanding they produce documents they don’t have. Many poor, and often African-American, people in the South were born outside of hospitals and as a result don’t have birth certificates. “My father doesn’t have a birth certificate either,” this white state trooper reported. He now saw the issue in a new way.

Because of our fathers’ stories, our fathers’-in-law, and our own, we are all in this together. Our privilege, or our oppression, is entwined with the experience of every other person in our country. And we will all need to be a part of the solution.

—

David Adelson serves East End Temple in Manhattan. 

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s Blog.

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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Treading the Waters of Injustice

My head is swimming.

Not just with the heat of an 18 mile march on a cloudless summer day; not just with the bottles of water and Gatorade, although it is swimming for those reasons.

My head is swimming with pride at being a Reform rabbi in this moment; never have I been prouder. Never have I felt the power of the collective impact we can have in the sacred work of repair than I did on one long day. Our presence there was felt and appreciated; our willingness to accompany, to listen, was so valued, so noticed. We matter, as Reform rabbis, in this space and on this march. What it will mean beyond September is yet to be determined; it is for us to determine it. But in the moment, I cannot underscore how much it meant to me and to our fellow marchers that we engaged in a ministry of presence, teaching Torah with our feet, with our hearts, with our ears, and with an actual Torah!

My head is swimming with the heartbreaking and heart-filling stories I heard along highway 29 in Troup County, GA – the county with the ninth widest gap between rich and poor in the entire United States.

I heard the story of Royal who is, like me, afraid to watch his son pull the car out their driveway; realizing that the reason Royal is worried is because of the real fear that his son could end up dead after a routine traffic stop left my head swimming.

I heard the story of a Georgia State Trooper who was at the forum on voter justice; he was ostensibly there “just” for our safety, but as a colleague spoke to him at the end of the forum, it was clear that his eyes were opened. Having heard about the new and regressive laws coming forward in Georgia regarding voter registration, the trooper said, “Man — my father may not be able to vote; he was born at home and so doesn’t have a birth certificate.”

My head is swimming with the desperation in Jonathan’s eyes when I asked him why he was marching. “Why am I marching?” he nearly yelled. “People are dying! This country is failing to live up to its promise! Why am I marching? Because we have to wake this country up!”

I’m swimming with the optimism of Keshia who quit her job to walk the entire 860 mile journey. At the end, she’s moving to Detroit to start a not-for-profit that will help people start small businesses in their own communities.

My head is swimming with possibilities, inspired by the local political science professor who regularly reads the Georgia constitution with his students, as each proposed change to state voting laws is considered. He regularly calls into the Attorney General’s office in the middle of class to point out the unconstitutionality of a new statute. He and his students regularly are a part of stemming the tide of injustice, and his students learn firsthand that they can make change in the world.

My head is swimming with the shock and awe of having read The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, all in the space of two weeks. Each of these texts is a must-read for those who wish to understand something of where we are in this country with regards to racial injustice, for those who wish to understand how got here, for those who believe that this is all about a few “bad apple” police officers or about people who “refuse to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”

I’m angry.

I’m angry at myself. Angry at how willfully blind I’ve been.

I’m angry at the system we have created and perpetuated and codified to ensure that there are two different systems of “liberty and justice for all,” at the ways in which Jim Crow is still alive and well and living all over our great country.

Are you angry? Do you want to do something about it? I don’t have answers yet, but my head is swimming– drowning, really. Will you jump into these scary, unfamiliar rip-tide waters with me?

—

Joel Mosbacher serves Beth Haverim Shir Shalom Synagogue in Mahwah, NJ.  

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s blog. 

 

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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Bibilical Echoes

83 year old Hazel Dukes led our community with words that I’m sure are familiar to all who have and will march: “What do we want? JUSTICE! When do we want it? NOW! Her voice was simply a modern echo of Isaiah’s call (51:1) from the Haftarah for parashat Eikev, for us to be Rodfei Tzedek, Pursuers of Justice.

Standing at our rally at the steps of the Alabama State Capital in Montgomery, we chanted along. Having grown up in the 1950s and 60s, I found it humbling to gather in this location where over fifty years ago George Wallace and his Alabama State Storm Troopers reigned. Now, historical signs throughout Montgomery are reminders of how far civil rights have advanced. All the State Troopers, not just the black officers, could not have been more helpful, courteous or supportive of our purpose. Yes, there has been progress, but as we know, the work is not complete.

Speaker after speaker and the experts for our teach-in the next night made this abundantly clear. Echoes from this week’s Torah portion linked to the goal of our marching. “Our lives, our votes, our jobs, our schools matter” calls out to us in the spirit of Deuteronomy’s (15:7), “Do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kin.” Slavery may have ended after the Civil War, but the slave experience and subsequent manifestations continue to oppress the black community. We can relate, “Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 15:15)

Walking in the hot Alabama sun, we chanted for justice and sang songs of freedom and friendship. (That included Hineh Mah Tov and Psalm 150.) On the one hand I felt as though we were reenacting history, but on the other I understood that there was so much more to be done. Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – justice, justice, you shall pursue (Deuteronomy 16:20), found in next week’s parasha, echoed loudly. It reminded me that we joined with the black community seeking justice in the past and that we must continue to seek justice today in order that there be a more meaningful tomorrow.

—

Rabbi Bob Loewy serves Congregation Gates of Prayer in Metairie, LA.

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s Blog.

 

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In Every Generation …

B’chol dor vador chayav adam lirot et atzmo k’ilu hu yatza mi-Mitzrayim.  “In every generation, a person must view herself/himself as if s/he had gone out of Egypt” (Pesachim 116b). Our sages teach this text to emphasize the need to praise God for the Exodus each and every Passover.  At the Seder, we celebrate as if we were actually there and the stories we recount actually happened to us. In a broader sense, we view this text as a call to compassion and action.  In each generation, we must think of ourselves as if we had known personally the bitterness of slavery and then the joy of freedom.  Knowing the pain of oppression, we are compelled to work for justice, b’chol dor vador, in every generation.

The text took on a deeper layer of meaning for me as I marched with the NAACP’s America’s Journey for Justice this summer in Aiken County, South Carolina.  When I got off the bus at the staging area, holding the Torah scroll we would carry, I was approached by an older African American woman named Linda.  “Rabbi,” she said, “Thank you for being with us on this march.”  Making conversation, I asked her if this was her first day marching, meaning, had she participated the day before?  “Oh Rabbi,” Linda laughed, “I was marching back in the ‘60s!”  B’chol dor vador, in every generation we must work for racial justice.

My marching partner for one stretch of the journey was Eugene, an African American man about my age.  He was wearing a button that said, “I Am Marching For Civil Rights.”  Around the outside of the button, it said, “Washington, D.C. 1963.”  His grandfather had been there in DC in 1963 and worn that pin.  He had later given the button to Eugene when Eugene was 5 years old.  And Eugene wore it that day as we marched again for racial justice.  B’chol dor vador.

We were housed overnight at Paine College, a historically black liberal arts college in Augusta, GA.  Students were just beginning to arrive back on campus.  Nevertheless, one of the college’s theatre troupes heard that the marchers were staying there and, on short notice, prepared a performance for us.  They did a dramatic reading of pieces from Langston Hughes, Dr. King, and others, including a haunting 90 second rendition of Eric Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe.”  At the end of the performance, one of the college actors explained why they felt compelled to perform:  “We know why you’re marching.  You’re marching for us.”  B’chol dor vador.

Before I left to march, I talked with my young children about why I was going: people are being treated unfairly and unjustly due only to the color of their skin, and we hoped the march would make people pay attention to these things that weren’t right and do something about them.  My daughter, age 7, made the connection and said, “Like in Dr. King’s time, right?’  “Yes,” I answered.  Then this quizzical look came over her face.  “But why didn’t they fix that back then?” she asked.  “Why is this still happening now?”  She was incredulous that we hadn’t gotten it right yet, that racial justice still needed to be worked on.  And that, I told her, was why I was marching.  The struggle for racial justice from the past is, unfortunately, still incomplete.  That struggle belongs to us now in our day and age:

And so we march with Linda, who had to march once again, this time with the next generation. We march with Eugene, marching in the path trod by his grandfather.  We march with the Paine College students marching for their future.  The effort of old is our responsibility now.  B’chol dor vador, in every generation, we will continue to work for racial justice.

—

Rabbi David S. Widzer is the rabbi of Temple Beth El of Northern Valley in Closter, NJ.  He  currently serves as one of the CCAR’s representatives on the Commission on Social Action.

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s Blog.

 

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Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

Joining Hands, Marching Together

On Tuesday, five of us[1] flew to South Carolina to march in the NAACP’s Journey for Justice.[2]

Why? This poem from American poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967):

“Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
            (America never was America to me)…”

We began. Passing the Columbia State House, we noted the poignant absence of the Confederate flag, finally removed following the tragic, racist church shootings in June.

At the front of our column, an American flag was carried high by a black veteran of Korea and Vietnam. He drew his name, Middle Passage, from a slave forebear.

“Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
            (It never was America to me.)…”

Each block, passing stores and restaurants, folks came out to cheer. Cars honked, passengers waved support. We marched through middle class and lower middle class neighborhoods – and people noticed. They came out for hope. We were a bit of evidence that black lives matter.  And not only to blacks.

“I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak…

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-
Hungry yet today despite the dream…”

We weren’t a large group.[3] And there wasn’t much publicity, in local or national news. What was the value in our participation?
We Barnert folks celebrated our own Rabbi Martin Freedman z”l, a Freedom Rider in Tallahassee, FL.[4] This was our chance to “walk the talk.”

Times have changed. But not enough. I walked alongside an Episcopal priest. She was white, her husband was black, and their bi-racial children suffered terrible discrimination. Her 14 year old son had been arrested by police in Edison, NJ on charges of assault.[5] But there had been no assault. Her son, walking in their white neighborhood, was stopped by police; when he answered a question with a smart-mouthed teen response, they handcuffed him.

This mother was drawn to a ministry with black prisoners, guiding them to manage anger and resentment, to forgive and then shape new lives.[6]

We marched with Keshia Thomas, a black woman devoted to spreading the message among frustrated teens that violence is wrong, period. Her story: in 1996, the KKK tried to organize a rally in Ann Arbor, MI. Hundreds of people gathered to protest. A rumor spread that someone was a Klansman, and people began to mob him. Keshia leapt forward and spread herself over the man, protecting him. A photographer from LIFE captured the moment, and Keshia gained a name for peaceful resistance. Her message has influenced thousands. Most recently she met young people in Baltimore after the death of Freddy Grey and the subsequent torching of a CVS store. “Look across the street,” she said to them. “There’s a Senior Home. What do you think those folks are thinking and feeling about you? Would you want to be in that home, and not feel safe going out on your street? Find another way to protest. Advocate peacefully with me!”

Alongside the American flag, we carried a Torah. Each night it was passed to the next day’s Jewish marchers. Torah: symbol of just civilization. Torah: witness to our own brand of persecution. We get it. So we speak out.

“…For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a ‘homeland of the free.’ …”

Civil rights earned can be lost. Racism is real.  Criminal injustice is real. The challenge to the Voting Rights Act is real. The cycle of Poverty is real.

Returning at the end of the day, we unwrapped the Torah around us, and shared our reactions. We recalled the Jewish Journey, fleeing slavery, seeking freedom.

“Standing on the parted shores, we still believe what we were taught before ever we stood at Sinai’s foot; that wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt; that there is a better place, a promised land; that the winding way to that promise passes through the wilderness. That there is no way to get from here to there except by joining hands, marching together.”[7]

There’s a lot more to be done in our nation. Let’s do it together.

—

Rabbi Elyse Frishman serves Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, NJ and is the editor of Mishkan T’filah.

 

[1] The Barnert team: Lisa Dugal, Marni Neuburger, Isaac Hart (a sophomore at Glen Rock High School) and Anya Gips (senior at Fairlawn High School and BarTY President) and me. Read Anya’s and Isaac’s pieces separately!

[2] August 1-September 16, from Selma to Washington, hundreds of Americans are walking in solidarity for black civil rights.

[3] In fact, the greatest number of participants over the last 25 days has been Reform Jews.

[4] Our journey was much safer than his – we had the protection of state troopers.

[5] Her story echoes others I’ve heard of young black teens walking the streets in white north-western Bergen.

[6] She said to me, “Forget prison reform. It’ll never happen. After decades in my ministry, I’ve learned to devote all my energy to the victims, helping them move beyond their radically unfair pasts.”

[7] by Michael Walzer, adapted from Exodus, as found in Mishkan T’filah

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Rabbis Rabbis Organizing Rabbis Social Justice Torah

True Strength at America’s Journey for Justice

I know what strength is. Reflecting on marching in the NAACP’s America’s Journey for Justice, I witnessed true strength. Now back home in New Jersey returning from LaGrange, Georgia, my husband and I had joined the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ delegation of over 150 rabbis who are also representing the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center. We are taking turns supporting this 40-day march to Washington, DC. I sit here nursing sore muscles, while marveling that we actually walked 15 miles, all in one day, in August, in the South. And we also carried a 20-pound Torah, recalling the iconic photograph taken in Arlington National Cemetery of Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, President of then-Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now the Union for Reform Judaism, as he held a Torah scroll and marched next to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Yes, I feel strong for the physical feat, as I feel strong for engaging in action after I have felt so powerless watching tragic injustice after tragic injustice. I felt strong when I walked by Confederate flags, a pro-Confederate flag billboard, a Confederate monument, and scowling faces uttering rude comments. Yet, I felt proud that the majority of spectators, representing all races, were supportive or nicely inquisitive. They honked, waved, and leaned out of cars to ask about our unexpected parade, protected by the local police and state troopers. I smiled as mothers brought out their young African-American sons to see us walk by. Our leaders shouted that we were walking for them, so that they could get an education, stay out of jail, and have hope for justice.1mary

However, the true strength I witnessed was in the elders who led our march and carried the American flag. These men, beaten and brutalized so many decades ago, had marched with Dr. King during the original Freedom Marches. At their age and health condition, they deserve to sit or try some gentle exercise classes. Yet, they are dedicated to walking much of 18-22 miles a day for 40 days! Every night they will wrap blistered feet, sleep on uncomfortable cots and rise at 5 a.m. to walk with dignity. They are finding the physical strength to match their passion for justice. I also saw strength in a group of five women who joined the march, representing their local NAACP chapter. These five African-American grandmas showed up looking like they were ready to visit the shopping mall. Some did not even have sneakers or proper walking shoes. Instead, they wore their summer jewelry and sandals! They walked and sang uplifting church hymns in beautiful harmony. When our leaders announced that the last stretch would be walked at a pace double our normal stride, just as the heat index hit its peak at 120, these ladies dug in for the last miles with determination. Additionally, I witnessed strength in the young people, the next generation of NAACP professionals and volunteers, who have dedicated themselves to fighting injustice. Finally, I marveled at the strength of the woman, an African American community activist and organizer, who showed me the well-known photograph of herself at age 18 in 1996 throwing herself on a stranger suspected of being a white supremacist as an angry mob sought to attack him. She continues to have the strength to smile every day as she dedicates her life to bettering our nation.

During the walk, our shift of rabbis sang “Ozi v’zimrat yah, vay’hi li liy’shua. God is my strength and might; God will be my salvation. (Exodus 15:2)” I know I am blessed to have witnessed God’s strength working through so many amazing people. May the marchers continue to be endowed with strength to see the justice journey home.

—

Rabbi Mary L. Zamore is the editor of and a contributing author to The Sacred Table: Creating a Jewish Food Ethics.

This blog was originally posted on Huffington Post Religion. 

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Taking Torah on the Road

Do you remember holding a Torah scroll? Its sudden weight in your arms and soul, the joy of connecting through the generations to Sinai in an instant. When was that moment? Was it being called to the Torah for the first time as Bat or Bar Mitzvah, accepting a Shabbat or High Holy Day honor, or passing the scroll to a child or grandchild? In almost all of these memories, likely that the place of that moment is in the sanctuary.

The contrast between holding a Torah in synagogue and holding a Torah anywhere else but a synagogue is what struck me the most when I held the Torah scroll on Friday, August 7. Along with twenty others, I was on Route US-29 walking for nineteen miles with the NAACP’s America’s Journey for Justice from Opelika, Alabama to West Point, Georgia, flanked by six Alabama State Police. The Torah had come down the mountain. I held the Torah tight, embracing its teachings, its symbolic presence, my personal memories of holding Torah when I was ordained a rabbi and when I handed the scroll to my son and then daughter as they became Bar and Bat Mitzvah, and my vision of the iconic photo in Arlington National Cemetery of the Torah in the arms of Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, President of then-Union of American Hebrew Congregations, now the Union for Reform Judaism, as he marched next to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.

The Torah in my arms came from Chicago Sinai Congregation because of the leadership of Rabbi Seth Limmer, who invited his congregation to lend a Torah scroll to make the entire 860 mile journey over forty days from Selma, AL to Washington, D.C. A waterproof backpack with Torah messages written on it and a banner from the Religious Action Center was at the ready if there was any threat of rain. Over 150 rabbis have volunteered escort the scroll, taking daily shifts during the entire journey.

Mirroring the forty days Moses stood on Sinai receiving the message of Torah, we will march about forty days bringing the values, teachings and relevance of Torah to the streets of America. On Friday, August 7, I was joined by Rabbi Peter Stein, from Rochester, NY. Several other fellow marchers enjoyed taking the scroll for a mile or so. Many were not Jewish but felt – as they called it – the inspiration of carrying God’s word.

For those watching us march, on their porches, in stopped cars, once in a while lining the roads, there were only two visible symbols: the American flag and the Torah scroll. That was all: six police cars, about 20 marchers, and two symbols. What could they be thinking? News reports prepared the remote townships about the march. We would sing our songs and shout our chants for justice. Still our march took many by surprise. I am sure that this was the first Torah scroll many had ever seen. I wanted to stop to explain, but we had our marching orders. We did not stop from 8 am to 4 pm that day; the Torah did not rest; our message was on the move. For those who knew even a little, the symbol of the Torah demanded a response: we have Jewish values that are synonymous with Christian values and Muslim values and many other peoples’ values and most importantly with American values: we cannot stand idly by when our neighbors are in need.

W.E.B. Du Bois said, “The battle we wage is not for ourselves alone but for all true Americans.” Over those many miles, my feet though weary felt lightened by the embrace of Torah. Etz Chayim Hi – The Torah truly is a Tree of Life, and all who hold it tight will find happiness (Prov. 3:18). I will never hold the Torah scroll the same way.

—

Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker has served Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul, Minnesota for eighteen years.  

This blog was originally posted on the RAC’s blog.

 

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Tora(h) is Her Nickname

I traveled to Montgomery, Alabama fifty years after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led marchers to that city from Selma, sixty years after Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus there, and two days after America’s Journey for Justice began. As I explained to my congregation before I left, after too many needless deaths of African-Americans over the past year, participating in the march felt like the most powerful way I could stand up for the Jewish teaching that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).  So I set out for Montgomery, together with two members of my congregation, to march and most proudly, to carry the Torah along the route.

My connecting flight to Montgomery was on a small plane, the kind only big enough for one flight attendant.  The flight attendant was a young African-American woman.  “Welcome aboard,” she greeted us before take-off, “my name is Torah.”

Coincidence? That’s one way of describing it.

I had to know more about her name, so after the plane had landed, I told her a little bit about the Jewish meaning of Torah, and why I was coming to Alabama. She corrected me on the spelling – it’s actually Tora – and she told me it was her nickname.

Standing face to face with her, I thought of a legend about the early Chassidic master, the Maggid of Mezrich, who used to tell his students: Don’t just talk about the Torah. Be Torah.

And here she was.

It was a good reminder that the most sacred aspect of my journey would be listening to other people’s Torah.  Fundamentally, it’s not about issues, politics or policy; it’s about people. I came to the march, first and foremost, because I have plenty to learn about other people’s experiences with injustice in our society.  Just as importantly, I have plenty to learn from other people’s insights into how we can overcome it together.  The march seemed like an incredible opportunity to learn from other people who are busy being Torah.

So who was the Torah I learned while marching? I met Alabama churchgoers, New York union workers, college student activists, people who lived through the civil rights struggles of fifty years ago, and their grandchildren in tow, many wearing t-shirts with pictures of Dr. King.

I listened as one young organizer addressed the room, taking for granted the fact that everybody there knew someone who had been killed by a police officer, and most people nodded in agreement.

I chatted with one of the Alabama State Troopers who protected our group all day, in poignant contrast to the march of 1965, and who told me it was an honor that he held the Torah scroll for a few moments.

I commiserated about the heat with a woman who told me she had been searching for a job for so long, so long.

I sat on the bus with a retired minister and firefighter who had been beaten walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Dr. King, who described his childhood dread of the Ku Klux Klan, and the promotions he knew he had been passed over for at the firehouse because of his race, who explained to me why he felt so uplifted organizing this march, and why he was so confident about the power of the next generation to fight for a better world.

Rabbi Leib ben Sarah elaborates on the principle associated with the Maggid:  “A person should see to it that all her actions are a Torah, and that she herself becomes so entirely a Torah that one can learn from her actions and her motions and her motionless clinging to God.”*

I don’t know too many people who can claim to live up to that challenge all the time, but marching in Montgomery seemed like an important step in trying to meet it a little more fully. Like the other 150 Reform rabbis who signed up to participate in the march, I feel honored to have been able to participate in such a historic and sacred event, and privileged to have had the chance to jump on a plane to practice what I preach.

By carrying the Torah, I learned so much Torah; by learning so much Torah, I have seen again just how much this world needs us to be Torah.

*Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim. I adjusted the language for gender in honor of Tora.

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Rabbi Beth Kalisch lives in Philadelphia and serves as the spiritual leader of Beth David Reform Congregation in Gladwyne, PA.  

A version of this blog originally appeared on Rabbi Kalisch’s blog and the RAC’s blog.