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Journey For Justice
Local rabbis heed the call to stand up for all people.
Rabbis Mark Miller and Ariana Silverman
Special to the Jewish News
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
As rabbis, we have carried Torah scrolls
in synagogues, schools and Jewish sum-
mer camps. We have held them aloft on
mountaintops, danced with them in the
streets of Detroit and passed them to gen-
erations of Jews before the open ark.
And on Monday, Aug. 3, we embraced a
Torah scroll as we walked in the footsteps
of the Civil Rights March from Selma to
Montgomery in 1965.
On Aug. 1, the NAACP initiated
"America's Journey for Justice an 860-mile
march from Selma to Washington, D.C., to
highlight "Our Lives, Our Votes, Our Jobs
and Our Schools Matter:'
The Reform movement's Religious
Action Center and Central Conference
of American Rabbis quickly took a lead-
ership role and promised that a rabbi
would be on every step of the journey.
And because Torah has always been our
guide and inspiration, we decided a Torah
should accompany the entire journey ...
a scroll from Chicago Sinai Congregation,
wrapped in a mantle with the fitting
words, "And All Its Paths Are Peace"
(Proverbs 3:17).
Compelled To Act
As rabbis from Metro Detroit, we under-
stand well the racial tensions that can
tear a community apart. Committed to
addressing the racial injustice that contin-
ues to plague our nation, we were among
the first of more than 150 Reform rabbis
(and dozens of lay leaders) who volun-
teered to walk through the Deep South
and advocate for change.
As we marched from the outskirts of
Montgomery to the State Capitol building,
we met politicians, activists and ordinary
people who felt compelled to act.
We walked alongside Cornell Brooks,
inspirational president/CEO of the NAACP,
whose vision shaped this journey. With
gratitude, he asked why so many Jews
agreed to travel across the country to
march in the summer heat of Alabama,
Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia and
Washington, D.C. The answer is found in
the words of our new friend ... it is press-
ing against our hearts.
We spend our days building Jewish com-
munity, teaching our tradition, celebrating
joyous moments and healing from difficult
ones. And, for 4,000 years, our mission
has been broader. We possess an eternal
covenant to work as God's partners in
14 August 20 • 2015
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Detroiters Rabbi Mark Miller, Jim Marks and Rabbi Arlene Silverman approach the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery.
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the ongoing act of creation. To make this
beautiful world a better place. And that
means caring about more than just our
own community.
In Pirkei Avot (Wisdom of Our Fathers),
Rabbi Eliezer says, "Other people's dignity
should be as precious to you as your own"
(2:10). The Talmud also suggests: "If you
shut your eyes to [others] created in God's
image ... you are not much better than
one who prays to idols" (B. Ketubot 68a).
Fifty years ago, Rabbi Abraham Joshua
Heschel famously said that his "legs were
praying" as he walked with Martin Luther
King Jr. He understood our Jewish heritage
demanded that he respond to Dr. King's
RELIGION
-
FOUN,
Rabbi Mark Miller and Jim Marks display a Torah scroll at the spot where 25,000
civil rights marchers camped on the road from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.
admonition that injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere.
The same call brought others. Rabbi
David Teitelbaum traveled to Selma in
1965 with four other rabbis, and stated
simply: "This was living out what Judaism
itself has been teaching all along, that you
have to help the oppressed, the underprivi-
leged — not stand idly by the blood of
your neighbor:'