Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr.

Abraham Joshua Heschel was born on January 11, 1907. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929. But there is so much more than just having birthdays this month that unite these two amazing men.

The photograph of Abraham Joshua Heschel walking arm in arm with Martin Luther King, Jr., in the front row of marchers at Selma has become an icon of American Jewish life, and of Black-Jewish relations. Reprinted in Jewish textbooks, synagogue bulletins, and studies of ecumenical relations, the picture has come to symbolize the great moment of symbiosis of the two communities, Black and Jewish, which today seems shattered.

The relationship between the two men began in January 1963, and was a genuine friendship of affection as well as a relationship of two colleagues working together in political causes. As King encouraged Heschel’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement, Heschel encouraged King to take a public stance against the war in Vietnam. When the Conservative rabbis of America gathered in 1968 to celebrate Heschel’s sixtieth birthday, the keynote speaker they invited was King. When King was assassinated, Heschel was the rabbi Mrs. King invited to speak at his funeral.

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Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon: Our Social Justice Stories

A recently heard a story about a group of campers by the side of a river. They saw a body floating by. They all ran into the water, pulled the person out, performed CPR and saved the person. As they were packing up their tents, they noticed another body. Again they jumped into the water, and rescued the man. As they were getting into their cars, they saw another body come floating by. As they were saving this person, one person turned to another and asked: Maybe we better get up-river and see if we can find the source of this problem!

Yes, we’re good at attaining short term goals, but we don’t worry about what comes later. Like the campers, we’re good in a crisis, at saving people as they float by. When we see pictures of hunger on the T.V. and destruction on the front pages of our newspapers and magazines, we react. At these moments we’re good at providing food to fill empty stomachs. However, we don’t often ask what is happening up the river. We aren’t so good when the pictures disappear.  When the images are no longer in front of our eyes, we forget those that remain.

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Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon: The Labyrinth of T’shuvah

I have always loved mazes.  When I was in Hawaii a few years ago, I visited the giant pineapple maze of the Dole Plantation.  When studying in England, I visited the amazing hedge maze of Hampton Court.  And while on recent trip to Montreal, I was thrilled to discover that an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront had been transformed into Le Labyrinthe.

Recently, however, I discovered a whole new type of labyrinth.  This summer, while at a wedding in the Texas Hill Country with my fiancée, Laurel, I came across the most wonderful thing.  It was a simple path of stones that wound though a circle in an amazing geometric pattern.  There were no choices of which direction to go.  No difficult riddles to solve or giant scary trolls waiting to capture me.  It was just a simple path to walk.  As I walked the path to the center of the circle and then back out again, I found my mind wandering.  Thinking of my life, how I had come to this place and where I was going.  I left the labyrinth feeling refreshed and renewed.

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