By Rabbi Rick Sherwin
Exactly 71 years ago yesterday, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. The key holding of the Court was that, even if segregated black and white schools were of equal quality in facilities and teachers, segregation itself results in significant psychological and social disadvantage to black students, and it is therefore unconstitutional. The highest court in the land called for desegregation with all deliberate speed.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., reveals how states implemented this edict with all deliberate delay. Writing in 1963 (Why We Can’t Wait) – nine years after the historic decision – Dr. King highlighted that only 9 percent of southern [black] students were attending integrated schools. If this pace were maintained, writes Dr. King, it would be the year 2054 before integration in southern schools might be a reality! He concludes “democracy must press ahead, out of the past of ignorance and intolerance, and into the present of educational opportunity and moral freedom.”
See reated: Spiritual Activism by Rabbi Rick Sherwin
For Martin Luther King, Jr., social justice begins with the religious community, spiritually armed and motivated to demand and pave today’s dusty path so that all may actively walk together towards the promise of tomorrow. Beliefs are motivating and words are inspiring, but “only a ‘dry as dust’ religion prompts a minister to extol the glories of heaven while ignoring the social conditions that cause men an earthly hell.”
Almost 2,000 years ago, the Talmudic Sages “anticipated” systemic racism and anti-diverse inclusivity in a midrash of "Adam's Creation": God took dust from the center of the earth and from the four parts of the world, and made Adam from red clay, black loam, yellow silt and white sand. From the red, God created blood, from the black God created sinews, from the yellow God created internal organs, and from the white God created bones. Then what color was Adam’s skin? It was green so that no race or ethnicity can claim, "I came first, so I am more important."
The ancient Rabbis’ modern message is that each color is a necessary part of the body, and all colors must work together as a rainbow to create the Oneness of human-being. The symbol of rainbow is thus not specific to any one group, but rather to all races, all religious affiliations, all gender identifications, all socio-economic strata working together to transform the world from the way it is to the way it needs to be.
Read, study, attend worship services, attend community meetings, then go out and ask other colors in the rainbow, “How can I help?”
Jewish worship services conclude with the charge l’takayn olam (לתקן עולם), to unite the broken pieces of the world and to put it back together so that everyone will attain the goal of shalom, wholeness, a world pasted together with common effort and respect.
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