Shalom, and Happy New Year! As Washington DC girds for a blizzard, I hope that you on Kauai continue to appreciate the unmatched beauty – and steady pleasant temperatures, rich history and culture, and truly stellar community – all around you.
And Happy New Month, too! January 2025 largely overlaps with Tevet 5785 – a month that began by the blazing-full chanukiyah; sports a minor fast day (Asarah b’Tevet) commemorating the events of 588 BCE that led to the First Temple’s destruction; and extends through the quiet normalcy of mid-winter, finally giving way to Shvat and its promises of spring’s imminent arrival. Though a bigger deal in more northerly climes, this rhythm is pronounced in the Holy Land too, just a few latitude lines further north than the most northerly Hawai’ian isle.
But January is its own big month in our American life – with New Years; Jan. 6, a date known to few until four years ago, that’s now our Defend Democracy Day; and continuing the theme, MLK weekend. This year, the Presidential Inauguration falls at the very same time as the celebration of the life and teachings of Dr. King, making for an interesting interplay of both comparisons and contrasts.
The civil rights hero, though an organizer at heart from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the Selma walk to the Poor People’s Campaign, was above all a public theologian. His life’s work was all about building the “beloved community” – in which all God’s children would be honored for their deep unique worth (since all are created b’Tzelem Elohim / in the Divine Image), and through which our common effort would bring ever greater redemption into society.
No wonder Dr. King’s name comes up first whenever people speak of ‘modern prophets’ – he channeled their “moral grandeur and spiritual audacity”, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote of them, noting how they aligned with Divine Pathos, and ever set ethics at the center. After King studied Heschel’s indispensable The Prophets, the two became fast friends. Had Coretta and Martin left Memphis in peace in April of ‘68, their next stop would have been NYC, to celebrate the first night Pesach seder with the Heschels.
King’s legacy includes two critical aspects of religion in public life, both of which are as deeply rooted in Jewish teachings as they are in King’s profound and progressive Christianity. One is liberation theology, the idea that God has special concern for the downtrodden and oppressed, and that the flow of divinity is ever toward enfranchisement and equality for all. The second, closely-related notion is lived theology (aka “praxis”), the prophetic insistence that we walk the talk, and stick our neck out for others, in consonance with our core beliefs.
“The moral arc of the universe is long,” taught Dr. King (following Unitarian abolitionist Theodore Parker a century earlier) – meaning that progress is studded with stumbles and reversals, and any shorter time-period might fail to reflect the big story – but in the main, our human and cosmic story “bends toward justice.” Others have notably disagreed, and current events (in any given month, January 2025 very much included) may or may not support Dr. King’s spiritual optimism. But all that we can do, is what we are called to do – to help build the beloved community by living out our own core values, and standing on the side of liberation and enfranchisement for all.
A small example, which I relate with pride (pun intended): 27 years ago, there were few LGBTQ+ rabbis or cantors in Reform or Reconstructionist settings, and Conservative was still years away from allowing queer folks to even begin the journey. My graduating class at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, a healthy mix of gay and straight, knew that unexamined homophobia and transphobia (to say nothing of latent sexism) could well preclude good rabbis from serving good communities. So we all committed to saying absolutely nothing about our family structure or sexual orientation, up through the first interviews we had for any position – thus giving communities time to encounter each candidate and their skills and personality, before following up with the fullness of our identities and commitments. Though challenging at times, this practice educated countless people and institutions; leveled the playing field as much as possible; and produced better outcomes for all. That was how the RRC class of ’97, students of liberation theology all, walked the talk.
As feminist and queer and other liberation theologians have long noted, people of faith are called on to keep enfranchising, to keep expanding their circles of compassion and concern. As another example, my own environmental commitments, and those of the growing eco-Jewish and eco-religious worlds, are their own form of liberation theology – centering the least-resourced humans who are at greatest risk from climate change, and encompassing the non-human beings and life-forms with whom we share this glorious fragile interdependent biosphere.
These examples may or may not align with your own top priorities. But across all our circumstances and ideologies and proclivities, the questions remain: How are you – how are we, together, communally – enfranchising others, and walking the talk?
The confluence of Inauguration Day with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day adds new urgency to these timeless prophetic questions. The answers are never clear or univocal; good people inevitably disagree on which values to prioritize, and on when to go with the flow and when to resist. That reality applies to every day of our lives – every month, and season; each year; each Administration. May we navigate the time ahead with as much thought and respect and humility as possible – but if/when we err, let be on the side of the prophets.
Chodesh Tevet Tov – a meaningful January, and a happy and healthy new year, to all.
L’shalom, Fred
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, D. Min. (he/him)
