My Story Part 2 (From Rosh Hashanah 2nd Day Sermon)

I have learned from life experience that we are not only motivated by love and joy, but also by pain and sadness. In recent years I’ve come to understand my life journey as being connected with another experience in my adolescence – the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. I grew up in Westbury LI, from my perspective (right or wrong) an ideal integrated community. It was around 15% Jewish, 35% Italian and 25% African-American. We played in each other’s homes and went to each other’s churches and when I look at my Bar Mitzvah movies from 1965, I see an amazing mix of creed and color. In April 1968 though it ended when MLK was murdered. An African-American friend’s mother called early the next morning and said not to go to school that day because there was going to be trouble. There was that day and on other days. But what is most sad to me is that I never played at Gary Oliver’s house again, nor did he come to my home. I’ve always wondered who was out there trying; healing the pain and sealing the breach in our community. The pain of that loss of idealized community is a driving force in me to create a diverse and caring community in the three synagogues where I have served as spiritual leader. I know now, that the ecumenical and social justice work, which has always been a major focus of my ministry, is in a strange, but beautiful way driven by a vision of experiencing as a child the divine spark in every person regardless of religion or race.

Before I continue, I’ll ask you to reflect for a moment about similar experiences in your lives. What are the core moments that set you on the path you have lived? What was the moment of joy, which made you who you are? What is the experience of pain for which you cope and compensate?