…Civil Rights March. Rabbi Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel OB”M famously accompanied the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. OB”M on a march in a display of peaceful civil disobedience to protest injustice in our country as part of the Civil Rights Movement. When Rabbi Heschel was asked about his experience he paraphrased Frederick Douglass by saying “I felt like my feet were praying with every step I took during the march.” Many members of Dr. King’s circle of followers took inspiration from Dr. Heschel’s magnum opus called simply “The Prophets” which portrayed the Jewish prophets of old as spiritual agitators for growth and change in society. Sadly, shortly before Dr. King was planning to attend the Heschel family’s Passover Seder, he was tragically gunned down in Memphis by an assassin’s bullet. Interestingly we commemorate Dr. King’s legacy not on the day he was killed, April 4th, but rather on the day he was born, January 20th.
While much has changed in the United States since Dr. King’s untimely passing over 50 years ago to advance the cause of individual rights for those who have been unjustly treated, there is still much more work that could be done to create a color-blind society that judges people “not on the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
When I reflect upon Dr. Heschel walking side by side with Dr. King, I sometimes cynically wonder what real benefit was gained from his joining in the march. As I reflected on it over the years, I seemed to peel back the layers of meaning behind this gesture of solidarity. On a very basic level, leaders who act with courage are probably very lonely and even fearful at times. Having a colleague join you in your activities probably lessens the burdens somewhat, knowing that someone, especially someone very different, was helping shoulder the burden. The silent prayer of Rabbi Heschel’s footsteps probably did more to encourage Dr. King than I could imagine. Ultimately, I realized that my inner cynic questioned why a famous Rabbi would get involved in a fight that was not his own. It eventually dawned on me that an enlightened spiritual individual such as Rabbi Heschel most likely did view it as his own fight.
A few years ago I was given the opportunity to stretch out of my comfort zone when I was offered to represent the Jewish community at a memorial for Dr. King in Atlanta. After complex discussions with my Rabbinical advisors to determine what extent of my involvement was “kosher”, I participated in the televised event with some hesitation but mostly with the feeling that I was building a bridge of solidarity with the memory of a kindred spirit.
I would be remiss if I did not mention how moving it was last week to be an Orthodox Jew attending a funeral in a Conservative synagogue at a service led by a Reform Rabbi at the funeral of Dana Rothschild Levy, of blessed memory, whose persona clearly transcended denominational labels and whose loss was poignantly felt all across Charleston’s Jewish community. I was struck at the funeral as well as at the memorial for Dr. King, as I often am struck when recalling the memory of someone no longer alive, by the observation of Erwin Kurtz in his classic “The Spirituality of Imperfection” where he maintains that to remember is to re-member, meaning to reconnect with whatever or whoever we are thinking about.
May the memories of the Righteous be a blessing for us all.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Elisha Paul
Head of School
