Juneteenth and the Long Road to Redemption
Dear Beth Shir Shalom,
On June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas. They delivered the news that the Civil War had ended and General Order Number 3, declaring that “all slaves are free.”
In a Thanksgiving address a few months later, the abolitionist rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal chastised the masses for their incredulous indifference to this historic moment: “Were not those who spoke for universal freedom and acted for universal justice in a small, small minority? And was not the name abolitionist a name of disgrace? And now this name has become a name of honor…” His optimistic proclamations – “The fetters of prejudices are broken” and “The white people have become emancipated just as well as the black people” – were premature. Slavery was abolished, but discrimination remained embedded in our laws, our cultures, and our biases.
This Juneteenth, during Pride Month and as we approach America’s 250th anniversary, we are reminded that freedom declared is not always freedom realized. The work of building a more just society is never finished, as our tradition teaches: “You are not required to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it…” (Pirkei Avot 2:16)
This week, we read of Korach’s rebellion in which he accosts Moses and Aaron: “Why do you raise yourselves above God’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3). Korach assumes that leadership is about power and status, like the kings and pharaohs that ruled the Ancient Near East. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks illustrates this with a striking image. The great, ancient civilizations built pyramids and ziggurats: wide at the bottom, narrow at the top, with a ruler standing above everyone else. Judaism, he argues, rejected that vision. Every human being is created in the image of God. The symbol of Jewish leadership is actually the menorah, an inverted pyramid that is broad at the top and narrow at the base. Leadership is not about standing above others, but rather lifting others up.
In a time marked by division, prejudice, and self-interest, we need the countercultural courage to look beyond ourselves, the wisdom to recognize the divine image in those whose experiences differ from our own, and the conviction to build a more just and compassionate world.
In our Friday evening prayers, one of my favorite readings next to Mi Chamocha, our prayer of redemption, reads:
Standing on the parted shores of history
we still believe what we were taught
before ever we stood at Sinai's foot;
that wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt
that there is a better place, a promised land;
that the winding way to that promise
passes through the wilderness.
That there is no way to get from here to there
except by joining hands, marching
together.
May this Juneteenth and Pride Month inspire us to join hands with our neighbors and help bring our world a little closer to redemption. Our tradition does not place the burden of repairing the world entirely upon our shoulders, but it does expect us to do our part.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex