Last Friday evening, Temple Emanuel of Kensington MD held its annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Shabbat Service, following a tradition we began in 1987. See https://davidfishback.blogspot.com/2020/12/annual-mlk-shabbat-service-temple.html We were fortunate to have as this year’s speaker Yolanda Savage-Narva, Director of Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion programs for the Union of Reform Judaism. The theme for this year’s service was Striving to Create Dr. King’s Beloved Community: Reform Judaism’s Quest for Racial Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
The recording may be viewed at
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=160016085624212&ref=watch_permalink Yolanda’s presentation begins at Minute 52. Rabbi Rosenwasser and Cantor Lindsay conducted a lovely, meaningful service; the readers movingly conveyed the significance of the evening. We were particularly pleased to welcome Rabbi Emeritus Warren Stone back to our virtual bima for the first time since his retirement last summer.
Here is the program for the Service:
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., SHABBAT SERVICE
TEMPLE EMANUEL, JANUARY 15, 2021
Striving to Create Dr. King's Beloved Community: Reform Judaism's Quest for Racial Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Officiants: Rabbi Adam Rosenwasser and Cantor Lindsay Kanter
Candle Blessings: Joanna Silver
Readers: Joanna Silver, Rabbi Emeritus Warren Stone, Sue Berman, Sunil Dasgupta, Nathan Rhein, Melissa Spence
Introduction of Guest Speaker: David Fishback
Guest Speaker: Yolanda Savage-Narva, Director of Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for the Union of Reform Judaism
Board Representative: Joanna Silver
Thank you to the Temple Anti-Racist Action Group (Wendy Rhein and Melissa Spence, Co-Chairs) and the Community Social Action Council (Ian DeWaal, Chair)
READINGS
PART I
[Joanna Silver] This evening, it is worthwhile to recall these words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who grew up and preached in the church that Senator Raphael Warnock now leads.
Dr. King's often quoted from Amos (5:24), "We are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied, until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
His vision was rooted in a faith that right would prevail: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
But he also knew that only through the work of our own hands would the world become a better place:
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. . . . No social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of dedicated individuals, who are willing to be co-workers with God."
This evening, we give thanks to all those in Georgia and around the country who took these words to heart.
PART II
[Rabbi Emeritus Warren Stone] Dr. King recognized that our goal could not only be the end of legal discrimination -- that we must go well beyond that:
"We are simply seeking to bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled.
“A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men no longer argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; the dream of a land where every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality -- this is the dream.”
“When it is realized, the jangling discords of our nation will be transformed into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood, and men everywhere will know that America is truly the land of the free and the home of the brave."
But to achieve this goal requires more than words. It requires us to see, really see, each other.
[Sue Berman] Listen to Maya Angelou’s poem, Equality:
You declare you see me dimly
through a glass which will not shine,
though I stand before you boldly,
trim in rank and making time.
You do own to hear me faintly
as a whisper out of range,
while my drums beat out the message
and the rhythms never change.
Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free
We have lived a painful history,
we know the shameful past,
but I keep on marching forward,
and you keep on coming last.
Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.
Take the blinders from your vision,
take the padding from your ears,
and confess you've heard me crying,
and admit you've seen my tears.
Hear the tempo so compelling,
hear the blood throb through my veins.
Yes, my drums are beating nightly,
and the rhythms never change.
Equality, and I will be free.
Equality, and I will be free.
PART III
[Sunil Dasgupta] Dr. King, in his famous passage about us all living in a World House, presented this homily:
"Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: 'A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together.'"
"This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great 'world house' in which we have to live together -- black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu -- a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace."
Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson, in her book Caste, provides a take on this metaphor, which takes us deeper into the problems posed by us all living in this house.
“We in the developed world are like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil is unstable loam and roack, hearing and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waived away for decades, centuries even.
“Many people may rightly say, ‘I had nothing to do with how this all started. I have nothing to do with the sins of the past. My ancestors never attacked indigenous people, never owned slaves.’
“And, yes. Not one of us was here when this house was built. Our immediate ancestors may have had nothing to do with it, but here we are, the current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation. We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, BUT THEY ARE OURS TO DEAL WITH NOW.
“And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands.”
[Nathan Rhein] So how do we figure out how to deal with this broken house. How do we, in fact “Repair the World” we have inherited. Perhaps we start with these prophetic words from Dr. King:
“Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family will live in a decent, sanitary home.
“Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality integrated education.
“Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.
“Let us be dissatisfied until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not on the basis of the color of their skin. Let us be dissatisfied.”
[Melissa Spence] Dr. King’s words, actions, and vision, like the Exodus story, must be told to every generation, and must be seen not just as history, but as a lesson for the present and the future. Dr. King’s teachings were a way of stating the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam – humankind’s effort to repair the world.
They are lessons for us all.
Dr. King taught us, “if you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But by all means, keep moving.”
Tonight, we rededicate ourselves to “keep moving.”
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INTRODUCTION OF YOLANDA SAVAGE-NARVA
Yolanda Savage-Narva leads the URJ's efforts to address racial justice and equity in all its forms, as well as other kinds of oppression -- looking not only to do what we can in the wider world, but also to what we need to do in our own congregations, as we seek to fulfill Dr. King's vision of building a Beloved Community and to follow the ancient admonition of Tikkun Olam, "Repairing the World." She also serves as Vice-Chair of the URJ's Commission on Social Action, and as Co-Chair of the Religious Action Center's Racial Justice Task Force.
Before joining the URJ staff, she was Executive Director of Operation Understanding (oudc.org), a non-profit whose mission is to create a generation of young leaders to promote respect, understanding, and cooperation while fighting to eradicate racism, anti-Semitism, and all other forms of discrimination. Earlier in her career, she worked in public health and education.
A member of Temple Micah in Washington, D.C. and of Delta Sigma Theta (an international Black sorority dedicated to community service and education), Ms. Savage-Narva is a graduate of Tougaloo College and has a Masters Degree in Education from Jackson State University.
Before joining the URJ staff last month, she was executive director of Operation Understanding, which brings Jewish and African American teens together to explore the American Civil Rights Movement and built connections between the two communities. Now, of course, we are becoming more and more aware that the two communities are not always distinct, but are intertwined.
Yolanda is particularly well qualified to take on her new position. I have had the pleasure of having conversations with her, and have witnessed her wisdom as she has moderated and spoken at URJ/RAC events over the last weeks addressing the tumultuous times we are going through. We are very fortunate to have her with us tonight – and will have an opportunity for discussion after the close of the Service.
So I am pleased to welcome Yolanda to Temple Emanuel.
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For information on past MLK Services at Temple Emanuel, see https://davidfishback.blogspot.com/2021/01/martin-luther-king-services-at-temple.html
