Moses and Martin – Joshua and Obama: The Promise of A New Day

By Rabbi Denise L. Eger delivered Friday, January 16, 2009

This week our Torah shifts from the early stories of Genesis to the core narrative of our people—the journey from slavery to freedom—the story of the exodus and liberation. This week's Torah portion is Shemot—the opening chapters of the book of Exodus.

It is this week—that we meet the central player in our liberation story—we meet Moses... A baby first in the bull rushes—saved by his sister Miriam from Pharaoh's decree of killing all the male Hebrew infants. Adopted by Pharoah's daughter in compassion. And we meet the young Egyptian/Hebrew prince raised in the courts of Egypt—who sees injustice before him and strikes out in anger killing the Egyptian overlord who is beating a Hebrew slave. We see the young Moses flee into the wilderness and we encounter the young Moses as he receives his prophetic call from God through a burning bush—As God reveals—the sacred name.

Moses' asks "And When I come to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you and they ask: What is His name what shall I say to them? And God says to Moses "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" – I will be that which I will be. The great torah commentator Gersonides says-- Unlike other names which denote God by God's actions this name denotes God's most essential quality, God's existent, unitary being.

And we know the rest of the story—That Moses' does succeed and brings the Children of Israel to the edge of the Promised Land—but only to gaze out and not to enter... Moses who we meet and encounter this week—is perhaps the greatest prophet of our tradition—and the Torah at his death teaches us in Deuteronomy –there will never be another prophet like Moses.... He carries the vision of the covenantal promise forward and records it articulates it but doesn't live to see it fulfilled.
So too another prophet in America's history is celebrated this weekend.

This weekend we observe Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. A true American hero. A true prophetic voice who spoke to the America in a way that brought into our consciousness that the color of our skin is only a matter of pigmentation. Such a simple yet, radical idea none the less. Human beings are the same color on the inside. He urged us as a nation to move beyond race, beyond class to beyond our limitations to imagine a world of abundance and peace.

Listen to his words –as applicable now as then:
"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. Say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things in life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say. If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he is traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain."

"The end of sleeping through evolution. So in a real sense the hour is late. And the clock of destiny is ticking out. And we must act now before it is too late. To develop the new attitudes. Let us fight passionately and unrelentingly for the goals of justice and peace.
"Now when anything new comes into history it brings with it new challenges and new opportunities. First we are challenged to develop a world perspective."

"No individual can live alone. No nation can live alone and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. Through our scientific and technological genius we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. Somehow and in some ways we gotta do this. We must all learn to live as brothers or we will all perish together as fools."

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny. Caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; whatever effects one directly effects all indirectly."

"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. --But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake to adjust to new ideas to remain vigilant and face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world- wide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gap between are scientific progress and our moral progress."

"I have an abiding faith in America....and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as a final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the ideas that the isthmus of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the moral oughtness that ever confronts him. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals for their bodies, education and culture for their minds and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits I believe what self centered men have torn down, other men can build up. Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. Let us move on in these powerful days –these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation."

These moving words—are indeed prophetic—the lead us to a great vision of our selves as human beings---
And one that ought not to be lost as we sit on this new edge of America as on Tuesday our 44th president will be sworn in. The pomp and circumstance of any inauguration of a president is special. But on Tuesday—America will enter a kind of Promised Land—Symbolized by Barack Obama—that a black man in America can rise to be President... How fitting that the day after we observe King Day—America will finally fulfill one of the prophetic dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. That a person should be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. Let the significance of this not be lost upon any of us.

And no matter who you voted for—no matter the difficulties that our new president will face—whether economic, or peace in the middle east, or Darfur, or terrorists who threaten our security, or global warming—we can all feel the promise of Dr. King's words—that bring us vision and hope that the world for a moment just a moment on Tuesday might actually be different— That what we as a country will do together might effect real change if we finally work together—that is the symbolism of the promise of our new President—not just as rhetoric—but that we might really achieve the words –it is not about a red America or a blue America but the United States of America. That we might find our soul as a nation once again—and that we all might be inspired to achieve those great visions for peace and justice world wide that Dr. King taught us in a different generation—and perhaps just as Joshua actualized the covenantal promise of the land in a way Moses' never could or world— That this new president might help us all actualize the vision of the world that Dr. King presented us with and challenged us and was murdered for.

Let us pray that our new President is able to find the grace and courage to bring Martin's vision of an America of true moral leadership, peace and justice to our lives and to the neighborhood of the world. And that together working across the aisle of discontent that we might be empowered each in our own place to find hope and faith in our country and in ourselves again; that we might like our prayerbook teaches us- feed the hungry, clothe naked and free the captive and keep faith with those who sleep in the dust. It is our Jewish tradition—it is the prophetic tradition and we pray—too that America will renew its own tradition of caring for our neighbors both locally and globally. Ken Yehi Ratzon so may it be God's will.