This week the first White House conference on Civil Rights has been meeting in Washington. When President Johnson opened that meeting, sitting in front of him were 150 national leaders. And also sitting there in the state reception room of the White House were eight young men from the Job Corps. A few months ago those young men were out of school, out of work, and out on the streets. Now, as interns in Washington, they were key members of the White House Conference staff, handling registration, communications, and other essential arrangements -- and they were sitting a few feet from the President.
One of them said “I just can’t believe it’s me!”
That is just how I feel tonight.
In college days I thought I could earn a Bachelor’s degree even a law degree.
Honorary degrees were pretty distant and the chances very slim.
But an honorary degree for an outsider from this great center of Jewish learning -that leaves me feeling just like the Job Corps boy “I just can’t believe it’s me.”
A year ago this week - on Thanksgiving as a matter of fact -- we announced the first financial grants in this War on Poverty. In the past 365 days we have obligated more than a billion dollars in all 50 states. We have touched the lives of 1,750,000 poor persons directly with jobs, education, loans, etc and we have reached 3,500,000 poor persons indirectly.
Of course there have been problems. But there are more participants in just one division of the war vs poverty - Neighborhood Youth Corps - than there are United States troops in all of Viet Nam! And we’ve got many fewer generals to watch over and supervise “our men”. We have learned a lot in this War against Poverty.
We are learning that the road from the Job Corps to the White House, from hopelessness on the streets to internship in Washington can be opened.
We are learning that the darkness in an Appalachian shack can be illuminated by the light in the eyes of a Head Start child.
We are learning that poverty can be ended, that boys from the slums of the Bronx or Birmingham can graduate from Exeter and St. Mark’s.
We are learning, as you have been learning in this seminary, that education within the seminary and life outside cannot be divorced.
Moses understood this - 5,000 years ago. He was one of the first Community Action leaders - a paragon of the kind of man we’re looking for in communities all across America.
True, Moses’ early years were spent as a member of the “establishment.” He stayed with the establishment too, through his early manhood. And he only split with the existing political structure over a concrete instance of injustice- the whipping of a slave!
He was indeed a community action leader.
First, he acted as advocate on behalf of the oppressed. Today in our Washington headquarters we call that providing “legal services for the poor.” Second, Moses tried to work through the establishment and to secure voluntary acceptance of social change. But when that failed, he brought pressure upon the establishment by calling upon God!
Of course if God is dead, as, some theologians argue, then our community action leaders are in real trouble. LBJ can’t call down plagues like Jehovah. Statements like that could cost a guy two jobs. But finally down in Washington we did agree that Moses qualified on all counts as a perfect executive director of one of the first community action programs.
He had to build consensus among twelve disparate tribes -- each with its own notion of what to do. (And I think that might even be tougher than trying to get different agencies and departments to team up).
Admittedly, at times his patience was strained beyond the breaking point. But that is not unheard of in the War against Poverty’. In exasperation, at one point, he even broke the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments. But he didn’t give up -- he started all over again to knock some heads together and get things moving toward the promised land.
Then too, like many who have enlisted in the War against Poverty -- he took a salary cut to go to work for his people. He gave up the style of life he was used to -- as Prince -- and instead settled for manna in the desert. Sometimes, though, I think it might be easier to get manna from heaven than to get money (moolah) from the appropriations committee.
Finally, he did bring his people within sight of the promised land -- but he never got to reach it himself.
But Moses was a community action leader, above all, because of the nature of his commitment. He didn’t delegate the job to others. When he saw something that he considered cruel and unjust-- he didn’t turn his back and pretend it wasn’t there -- that it was somebody else’s business -- he took it on himself to act. And he did root content himself with writing checks --hiring someone else to do the dirty work -- like hiring mercenaries in a military war. He had the sense of urgent personal obligation we need in this War against Poverty.
Last January one of the top editors of the Toledo Blade called us in Washington. His newspaper wanted to take a look at poverty -- first hand. And they asked if we could arrange a tour for them -- to see poverty, some place like Appalachia. The answer we gave them was: - “Go to Toledo” –take a hard look where you are. That’s where the poverty, is.”
I’m not sure how much that answer pleased them. But it was the right one. Poverty is not something far away. Nor are moral responsibilities and moral obligations.
Deuteronomy says this about our moral obligations -- "…It is not too hard for thee. Neither is it far-off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us, and make us hear it, that we may do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say who will go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou, mayest do it”...
Here at the Jewish Theological Seminary you have realized that our first obligation in charity runs to those nearest us and in greatest need. And you have realized that theological studies can be barren indeed if separated from compassionate service. Your institute for religious and social studies reflects this age old recognition of the relation of education to service.
You’ve already done this in still another way. You have said to your young Rabbis who are ineligible for military service: “Go, spend, a period of time in service to this community.” In service of the type urged by Rabbi Shelomo of Karlin two centuries ago: “If you want to raise a man from mud and filth do not think it is enough to keep standing on top and reaching a helping hand down to him. You must go all the way down yourself, down into the mud and filth. Then take hold of him with strong hands and pull him and yourself out into the light.”
That exhortation was taken to heart, literally and put into practice recently by Peace Corps Volunteers in the Dominican Republic. “When we’re hungry, you’re hungry When we walk in the mud, you walk in the mud.”
The thrust, the motivation, the attitude, the example of these Peace Corps Volunteers - and of your young rabbis.-- must now be extended throughout American life.
In terms of the needs we face -- national needs, world-wide needs -- there is no reason for anyone to be exempt from national service. There is no 4-F category in the War against Poverty -- either at home or abroad. Men and women, young and old are needed in the Job Corps, the Peace Corps, VISTA, the domestic Peace Corps -- and in a thousand communities across this country where the War on Poverty is being fought.
The Midrash states:
“If a man says, ‘What have I to do with the concerns of the community? What have I to do with their conflicts? What have I to do with their talk? Such a man destroys the world.”
We are all learning -- as a nation -- to accept that Rabinnical wisdom.
U Thant, recently said at the UN, he was looking forward to the “time when people everywhere will consider that one or two years of work for the cause of development either in a far away country or in a depressed area of his own community, is a normal part of one’s education.”
On this great occasion, your 80th anniversary, is it not time to adopt this idea officially as part of the education of a Rabbi? Why not give, o. even require, sabbatical for service? A sabbatical of service could come at anytime in a Rabbi’s career. It might come before or just after ordination. But such a sabbatical for service could also come in the middle of a career. For Rabbis whose children have gone to college, service in VISTA or the Peace Corps would give them an opportunity for new work and new learning. And this in turn, could be an example to the members of their congregations: -"an example for the layman to take a “citizen’s sabbatical.”
This, of course, a new twist on the word Sabbath.
Our modern academic version of a Sabbatical Year comes from the practice in ancient Judea of allowing the fields and vineyards: to lie fallow, without tilling, sowing or pruning, every seventh year. But the purpose was not the idleness of land or people, but their enrichment. That’s the kind of service I am proposing -- enrichment -- not idleness for both the Volunteers and the people they serve.
Let me make my proposal even more explicit.
We would welcome in the Peace Corps or VISTA the service of seminarians of all religious faiths who would for two years put aside their clerical clothes for a “citizen sabbatical of service.” Though they would refrain from direct proselytizing, like all other volunteers, they could provide that sense of mission, that infusion of faith which is so central to the Peace Corps abroad and the War on Poverty at home.
This is an invitation to seminarians and, all those preparing for the religious life of all religions to join us in this work -- not tomorrow, not next month, or next year -- but now. As a passage from The Ethics of the Fathers urges:
The time is short,
The hour is late,
The matter is urgent.
It is not incumbent upon
us to complete this task;
but neither are we free to desist
From doing all we possibly can.
This is an invitation which is, I am sure, in keeping with your best tradition. The Sim Shalom prayer from the Sabbath Book once seemed to be limited just to the children of Israel. But the Rabinnical Assembly has extended that prayer, which now reads: “Grant peace, well-being and blessing ...unto the world.”
That is a prayer in which every man can join. And just as our prayers extend to all the world, so must our actions!
There is another ancient prayer: “Next year in Jerusalem.” That prayer remained only a promise until people made those words become flesh, until they began to build a new Jerusalem, the new Israel, on the site of the ancient one, by their labor, through their sweat.
Not long ago an Israeli working in Liberia mailed a letter to a friend living in Jerusalem. The letter was returned with a notation; “There is no such place in this world.” The Israeli then went and tried to persuade that Liberian postmaster that Jerusalem was indeed a place on earth. The postmaster, however, insisted that “Jerusalem is an address in heaven.”
You and I know that the real Jerusalem is very much a place on earth, as well as in heaven - a place on earth that tells us to start building, start working, and not to rest content until we have built here and everywhere, the Jerusalem of our prayers, where peace, well-being and blessing are granted unto all.
