In January, 1963
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel delivered a speech on a conference on Religion and
Race. He began:
Friends, at the first conference on religion and race, the
main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. [Laughter, applause] Moses — and
Moses' words were, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people
go." While Pharaoh retorted, "Who's the Lord that I should heed his
voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord. I will not let Israel
go." The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is
not ready to capitulate. The Exodus began but is far from having been
completed. In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red
Sea than for a Negro to cross certain university campuses. [Laughter, applause]
There is a lovely juxtaposition
imposed by the Jewish calendar which calls to mind this statement. Dr.
Heschel’s yahrzeit was observed this past Monday and this morning we read of
that first conference on religion and race, the opening salvos in the battle between
Moses and Pharaoh.
Our Bar Mitzvah, William, focused
on the negative response of Moses. Dr. Heschel focused on Pharaoh’s negative
response and its concomitant results. It is that latter “no” that forms the
core of my remarks this morning.
Some of you may recall the
children’s song for Passover, “Listen King Pharaoh” by Shirley Cohen .
Oh listen, oh
listen
Oh listen King Pharaoh
Oh listen, oh listen
Please let my people go.
They want to go away
They work too hard all day
King Pharaoh, King Pharaoh
What do you say?
"No, No, No.
I will not let them go."
No, no, no, he will not let them go.
I was kind enough
to spare you my singing of the song. My family has to endure it; not you. The
song aptly summarizes Pharaoh’s on-going refusal to accede to the request by
Moses to let the children of Israel depart. As we all know, from peeking ahead
and/or because we remember the movie “The Ten Commandments,” it will take a
series of plagues, ten to be precise, before finally Pharaoh is willing to say
yes, it is time for all of you, men, women and children, to depart.
One wonders why
Pharaoh did not see the evidence before his eyes and wave the white flag of
surrender earlier. In next week’s portion, we see that his magicians were able
to replicate the first two plagues—rather than cause them to disappear which
would have made more sense--, and so we can understand why Pharaoh paid no heed
to the first two plagues. “Big
whoop; my magicians can do the same. The answer is still NO.” But when they
failed in their efforts with plague #3, that of Kinim, of lice, and proclaimed “Etzbah
Elokim He, it is the finger of God,” rather than recognize that he was
doomed and that he should yield, Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to
change his mind. He became entangled in his own cycle of negativity, so much so
by the end that the text declares that God had hardened his heart.
How often do we
see this in our own day? In June of 1987, standing before the Berlin Wall,
President Reagan proclaimed, “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.” He didn’t,
but less than 2 and ½ years later, the citizens of Berlin, from both sides tore
it down. When you visit Berlin there is little to be seen of that monstrous
wall which divided the city for over 2 ½ decades. And yet in a sense Mr. Gorbachev
did help tear down the wall. The changes of glasnost paved the way for the
literal fall of the wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989, along
with the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
This past year,
Helen Suzman passed away. For decades, beginning in 1952, she was the lone
voice against apartheid in South Africa. As Jews we can take special pride in
the fact that she was a MOT, a Member of the Tribe, and it was out of her
heritage that she found the courage to sit alone and vote against the
abominations of apartheid for so many years. Hers was a yes to the no, no, no,
we will not let them be free; we not let them be equal to the Whites. She would
live to see the wall of separation finally torn down in her native South
Africa.
When that iconic
picture was taken showing Abraham Joshua Heschel walking arm in arm with Martin
Luther King Junior and other civil rights leaders in the march from Selma to
Montgomery in 1965, he may have been the most prominent of the rabbis
participating but he was far from alone as marcher for civil rights and against
those who said no, no, no. Indeed, 2 years earlier, 19 members of the
Rabbinical Assembly left the convention held that year at the Pioneer Country
Club and flew to Birmingham Alabama where they participated in the protests
against segregation. Rabbis and other Jews were part of the effort to overturn
the evils of segregation.
While most of us
imagine that the South was where integration was blocked; that was far from the
case in this country; there were many other parts of this nation where racism
reigned. Think about the process of breaking the color barrier in professional
sports. In baseball, it was blocked by the commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis
until his death in 1941 and then blocked by some of the owners. Though Jackie
Robinson and Larry Doby began playing for the Dodgers and Indians respectively
in 1947, it wasn’t until 1955 when the Yankees brought in Elston Howard that
finally there was a non-white player on the team. The last team to break the
color barrier was the Red Sox in 1959. No, no, no, was a cry against
integration not only in the south but up here in the supposedly more open
north.
One may well argue
that legally the NOs of yesterday are now YESes, and sports (golf excepted)
seem to be well integrated (though one wonders what happened to white
basketball players, but that is a discussion for a different forum), integration
remains a dream yet to be fully achieved in many parts of land, not only in the
South. Think of our own community. For example, Massapequa High is 96% white.
(Plainedge is only slightly better, weighing in at 95% white.) If we are honest
with ourselves we will recognize that barriers remain; despite what the law may
say.
We have seen that
people of conscience can rise up and reject the Nos that have blocked freedom
and integration. One such figure was Dr. Martin Luther King, whose birthday we
mark in a week’s time. Rabbi Heschel spoke of Dr. King glowingly: “Where in
America do we hear a voice like the voice of the prophets of Israel? Martin
Luther King is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America.
God has sent him to us. His mission is scared, his leadership of supreme
importance to every one of us.”
King may have been the prophet who proclaimed the message, but countless
others heard similar commanding voices and worked to overturn the Nos of the
world in which many of us grew up: the world of the Cold War; the world of
apartheid; the world of segregation and the world, in which even a cold peace
between Israel and its neighbors was but a dream. These worlds have been
transformed because there were enough daring souls to challenge the Nos of
those worlds and leave us with better todays and tomorrows.
Over 30 centuries ago, Moses
challenged Pharaoh. It took many a trial to overturn the Egyptian’s NO. So
often that remains the case: the NOs of those in power and of the status quo
are difficult to change. We hope and pray that we will continue to be blessed
with courageous leaders who will guide us and convert the NOs that diminish our
society into the YESes of life.
V’chayn Y’hee Ratson. And may it be God’s will. Amen.
