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While I do not know what is the best or most appropriate way to celebrate the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I’d like to think that our Unity Weekend with Ebenezer Baptist Church would please him. Blacks and Jews worshipping together in both of their houses would have been something unusual in his day. We did so because he enabled us to do so. Joining in song in a Baptist Church is incredibly uplifting. You cannot help but be carried by the choir, clapping your hands, tapping your foot, something. An interpretative dance was a new element in the service this year, and it was simply beautiful and stirring. But even more moving to me is how familiar we have become with each other, how welcoming, how warm, how natural this is. 

There is still much work to be done to eliminate “H” from our society. I remarked that between our two peoples in the United States, there has got to be approximately 25 million citizens. When you include additional groups that continue to experience racism in the United States, the LGBTQ+, AAPI, immigrants, and non-Christian faiths, that is a rather hefty percent of America, perhaps even a majority. That in itself is the source of the racist Replacement Theory, that the white men who founded the United States are disappearing. This convinced one man to arm himself, “screw the optics”, and shoot up the Tree of Life on 10.27. His actions encouraged others, such as the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15 of the following year, murdering 51. 

There are those who have decided to rewrite the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence to now read, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that only we (my edit) are created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” If you are one of the groups, such as Blacks and Jews, who experience antisemitism and racism, it is because the Declaration of Independence doesn’t apply to you. 

The time for words is far past. We have been a silent majority for too long, suffering in silence. It is time to be a vocal majority, demanding the equality that our Founders penned. While the verdict in the Tree of Life shooter’s trial affirmed that our right to gather and worship God on Shabbat was violated, that verdict has not stopped antisemites from their “H”, nor will it. The “H” has so infected many that there is no inoculation to cure their self-destructive lives. The darkness that they inhabit continues to threaten so many, but it doesn’t have to. I felt the potential of victory over darkness that first Chanukah after the shooting when we lit the outdoor menorah, and continue to be reassured every Chanukah since. We did not let evil win.

Oh how I wish we had faith leaders like Dr. King today, modern day prophets who chastise us for our failings and demand better of us. Where are they? Dr. King reminded us of the power of good, when he wrote in “Strength to Love” in 1963: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. “H” cannot drive out “H”, only love can do that.” May Dr. King’s memory continue to be for a blessing.