Since 1987, Temple Emanuel has been commemorating and celebrating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a special Shabbat evening service the Friday before the national MLK holiday.
The 2025 MLK Service was presented on January 17. Our guest speaker was James Stowe, Director of the Montgomery County Office of Human Rights. He was invited to speak to us by Temple member and member of the Montgomery County Commission on Human Rights Candace Groudine. Jim's topic was particularly timely, in light of the recent national election results: The State of Human Rights in Montgomery County and Efforts to Build and Sustain a Community of Caring as a New Administration Comes to Washington, D.C. Jim's inspiring words reminded us of the unique diversity of Montgomery County and how we must continue to plan to keep our community as a place where this diversity is a strength for all of us. He reminded us of our County's history of segregation and how we overcame so much of it, remembering the grassroots (and successful) efforts to eliminate the segregation of the Glen Echo Amusement Park in the early 1960s. He reminded us that this sea-change came about because people planned how to effect positive change. And that whatever happens at the national level, we must remain dedicated to maintaining and improving our community. After the service, Jim spoke with members of the Congregation for over an hour, and we discussed connections that will enable us to be a beacon of hope in what may well be difficult times.
Our service also included readings presented by Daniel Solomon, Bobbi and David Fishback, Gaby Ross, Eva Sezchenyl, and Ian DeWaal. Rabbi Adam Rosenwasser and Cantor Lindsay Kanter officiated.
(Picture credit: Caroline Smith DeWaal)
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| The full service may be viewed here. |
Readings for the Temple Emanuel Martin Luther King, Jr. Shabbat Service, January 17, 2025
READING ONE
Here at Temple Emanuel, we display with pride the iconic photograph of Dr. King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the Selma March which led to the enactment of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. Rabbi Heschel was Dr. King’s great ally and a scholar of the Jewish Prophetic Tradition, and he reminded us that the “prophet was an individual who said ‘No’ to his society, condemning its habits and assumptions, its complacency. The purpose of prophecy is to conquer callousness, to change the inner man as well as to revolutionize history."
READING TWO
In the spirit of Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel, this evening is a time to recommit ourselves to the work against the related challenges of white supremacy and anti-semitism, while also remembering that we need to strengthen our bonds with those who share our values. While this particular moment is fraught with legitimate concerns that the American Experiment is at great risk, we must, like Dr. King, strive to make it work.
READING THREE
Dr. King’s 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 who engage in that “tireless effort and persistent work.”
READING FOUR
Dr. King explained 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 [people] no longer argue that the color of a [person’s] skin determines the content of [their] character; the dream of a land where every[one] 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” and everyone “will know that America is truly the land of the free and the home of the brave."
We also remember that the journey to this Land of Promise is far from finished, and that there are powerful forces seeking, consciously or inadvertently, to take us back to a time when we were much farther away from this Land of Promise.
READING FIVE
The tragic events of the last year and a half remind us that this is not just a challenge in America, but also world-wide. In his last book, published in 1967, Dr. King described our world as a “Great World House in which we have to live together -- black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim 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 rock, heaving and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waived away for decades, centuries even.
READING SIX
“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. . . . And, yes. Not one of us was here when this house was built. . . . 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.”
The human race’s ability to deal with this broken house is the existential challenge of the 21st Century – not just in America, but in the entire world. We can only repair this house if we face up to its defects. Dr. King challenged us to do so, and to do so with a moral clarity rooted in our shared religious values.
READING SEVEN
Just days before his assassination in 1968, just two months before the Poor People’s Campaign March on Washington, Dr. King, in a sermon just a few miles from where we sit tonight, proclaimed, “I will not yield to a politic of despair. I’m going to maintain hope. . . . God grant that we will be that David of truth set out against the Goliath of injustice, the Goliath of neglect, the Goliath of refusing to deal with the problems, and go on with the determination to make America the truly great America that it is called to be.”
CONGREGATION:
Let us learn in order to teach.
Let us learn in order to do.
