MLK and Exodus

The conversation also touched on the interpretation of the Exodus story in terms of economic equality and power structures, shedding light on the multifaceted influence of these spirituals on King’s messages of justice and equality. The participants also discussed a speech given after the 1967 war, highlighting the importance of peace and economic security in the Middle East. The speakers emphasized the message of economic security as a means to prevent desperation and violence, aligning with the speaker’s previous writings and discussions on the topic. Finally, the episode concluded with Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech, inspiring hope for a society where all individuals can live out the true meaning of equality and liberty.

Geoffrey Stern: So Rabbi, I look back last year and I did a solo podcast on liberation theology. I was in the holy city of Jerusalem and my guess is you were traveling to Dubai because you just told me you were leaving for Dubai next week.

Adam Mintz: I probably was, right.

GS: We discussed how Christians, especially in South America, took the story of the Exodus and used it and created something called liberation theology. And we ended up talking about how some Jews, we discussed Jon Levinson from Harvard and Yeshayahu Leibovitch. How they had a very minimal understanding of what the Exodus meant to us. And we’ll get back to them during the course of tonight’s event. But because we are on the eve of Martin Luther King weekend, I thought it would be a wonderful experience to look at some of his writings, specifically the I Have a Dream speech, and an interview I had no idea existed, as I said in the intro, that was made ten days before he was assassinated, and just as meaningfully, after the Six-Day War.

So we’re in for a little bit of a treat tonight, I hope, and I just want to say that today was Rosh Chodesh Shabbat, and I was having a discussion with my grandson Ari about two years ago. He goes to a beautiful progressive school called the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, and I said, what do you learn in school? And he goes, well, we learn about the [Jewish] holidays and stuff. I said, well, what holiday is it this month? [Thinking he would reference Tu b’shvat] What Jewish holiday is it? And he says, Oh, it’s Martin Luther King Day.

It’s Martin Luther King Day. So I think at least from his perspective, Martin Luther King is a Jewish holiday. And I think if we’re successful, if I’m successful with the texts, I think that that concept will resonate with us just a little bit. I don’t know if you celebrate Martin Luther King, if he resonates with you.

AM: We sure do. It resonates with me and I don’t give class that day. Very much resonates. It’s a good topic for today.

GS: In this source sheet, one of the sources I quote is from www.TheTorah.com  and in the intro the scholar says he listens to that speech every year. So we shall see that it really does resonate because it’s a midrash, it’s a commentary. So we are in Vayera, Exodus 7.26, and basically it says, HaShem said to Moses, go to Pharaoh and say to him, thus said God, let my people go, that they may worship me. Sholach et ami viavduni. Now this is not the only time in the Chumash that we have these iconic words, let my people go, and in Exodus 5.1 it says, Thus said God, let my people go that they may celebrate a festival for me in the wilderness.

The Significance of Yetziat Mitzrayim

4:22 GS So last year I made the case that there is a Midrash that says that every holiday in Judaism is Zecher l’yetziat Mitzrayim. I mean, basically, you cannot do pretty much anything in Judaism that you don’t make a blessing that somehow ties it in to Yetziat Mitzrayim. I think it’s safe to say that leaving Egypt or Throwing off the Pharaoh is a seminal, an absolutely seminal nation-forming moment in our Jewish tradition. Would you agree with me?

AM: I would absolutely agree with that.

GS: So the question that I asked last year and the question I’m asking today is, how does that seminal moment and iconic paradigm translate to the world? And last year, we talked about a lot of Christian scholars who basically took it. And when they were up against a tyrant a dictator he became the pharaoh and they became the children of Israel. If they had a trade of our if they had a Che Guevarra, if they had a Castro and then ultimately when they decided to overthrow Castro and they had a new leader they were always the Moses …not so much when it comes to the Jewish people I think in talking about Martin Luther King, we’ll see that he walked a very fine line where he never took it away from the Jewish people, and I think that impacts upon what his interpretation was of the uniqueness of Yitziat Mitzrayim.

So I think, you know, you would be remiss, and if you were asking, what is the meaning of Yetziat Mitzrayim to the Jews, if you didn’t quote the numerous passages in the Torah, such as the one in Deuteronomy 24.17, that say, you shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless, you shall not take a widow’s garment in pawn. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that your God redeemed you from there, therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.” So the concept is less about any coming to the land of Israel, getting the Torah. It has to be that you understand at a visceral level what it means to be exploited, what it means when people are not treated in an equitable, fair way, and therefore you have to treat people in an equitable and fair way. And I think that’s our key understanding of the concept. Last year we ended up by saying that Levinson said that “Avduni” is the key word. Let my people go to serve you. You don’t serve Pharaoh, you serve our God, and the way you serve God is by keeping his law. Not only his festivals, but his laws of weights, his laws of paying the worker on time.

We are a people of law, and if there is anything about the law that is impactful is that it has to be applied to everybody in an equal way. So I think you will never say to me, Rabbi, you agree totally. This is a thread. This is certainly a gishah, a way of looking at this. But I think it’s a fairly mainstream one.

AM: Very much mainstream. And you know, you said, you quote the Midrash that every Jewish holiday is in commemoration of the Exodus. And you can go further than that. Obviously, the major Jewish holiday, the entire ceremony of that holiday is the Seder to remember the Exodus from Egypt. Right, it’s literally the biggest ceremony of the year, is Zecher Litziat Mitzrayim.

GS: Absolutely, absolutely. So I want to start by just quoting an African-American spiritual. And the theme is, let my people go. Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land. Tell old Pharaoh to let my people go. Oh, when Israel was in Egypt land, let my people go. Oppressed so hard they could not stand, let my people go. So the Lord said, go down, go down, Moses, way, way down in Egypt land. Tell all pharaohs to let my people go. So Moses went to Egypt’s land. Let my people go. Let my people go. The takeaway that I took in there are many versions of this song is when it says tell all pharaohs.

It was clear to the writers of this song and the singers of this song that Pharaoh was not a point in time and the Exodus was not a moment in time. That it transcends time and it affects anybody who is feeling that they are pushed down, that they are oppressed. Oppression is the key word here, and that there is someone who will stand up, truth to power, so to speak, to take them out. And that is, I think, the core that the African Americans took, and therefore this song and this concept resonated so strongly with them.

AM: I mean, there’s a lot to be said for the fact that let my people go is in a sense musical, right? I mean, it’s a lot in the translation, shalach ami v’avduni, that’s powerful. But “let my people go” is really, you know, really lends itself to a black spiritual.

GS: Yes. So what I was amazed by is that if you do a Google search for, I have a dream speech, and the Bible, there are so many scholars, historians, scholars in literature, and as importantly, scholars in scripture who have studied this speech and how these spirituals and the concept, the paradigm of the Israelites, Moses, Pharaoh in Egypt has resonated. And one of them that I came across was called Second Isaiah Lands in Washington, D.C. by Keith Miller. And what he explains is that, and it really hit me when he says, a white chaplain in the Union Army regretfully noted, there is no part of the Bible with which slaves are so familiar as the story of the deliverance of Israel.

Moses is their ideal of all that is high and noble and perfect in man. That the American abolitionists frequently paralleled American slaves to Hebrews in Egypt. And even former slaves intent on moving to Kansas christened themselves “Exodusters”. So this was like so powerful an image to so many people. And in the I Have a Dream speech, they go verse by verse or stanza by stanza and say, what does Martin Luther King do in terms of drawing from the Old Testament? So at one point he says,

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. And that is a direct quote from Amos 5. That talks about the Jewish people at the time, and in the words of God, it says,

I loathe, I spurn your festivals. I am not appeased by your solemn assemblies. If you offer me burnt offerings or grain offerings, I will not accept them. I will pay no heed to your gifts or fatlings, your sacrifices. Spare me the sounds of your hymns, and let me not hear the music of your lutes, but let justice well up like water, righteousness like an unfailing stream.

It seems, and I think this will come through clearer, for Martin Luther King’s understanding of the Exodus, it was all about dealing with people equitably. Evenly. And this idea of justice like water and righteousness like an unfailing stream, this concept of going down to Egypt, this idea of leveling the playing field, of going down to the weakest member and making sure that they have the same access and same opportunities. That is the core of what I think Luther, and we’ll see as he takes away these speeches, what he was looking for. And a lot of it has to do with economic justice.

14:18 AM So I just want to say, I mean of course you’re right, that’s not the Torah’s view of the Exodus. That’s more the prophet’s view of equality. If you look at Amos, if you look at Isaiah, you have a lot more of economic equality. The Torah doesn’t portray the exodus from Egypt as being about economic equality. It’s about freedom from slavery. It’s like you quoted Leibowitz, that it’s about v’avduni, that we should serve God and not serve Pharaoh. But, right, there’s nothing about economics, really.

It’s not that slavery isn’t fair economically.

GS: Well, except you can make the argument that when the verse that I quoted at the beginning from Deuteronomy, when it talks about you shall not mistreat the fatherless, the stranger, the widow’s garment in porn, these are people that are economically dependent and at risk. So there is a little bit of it. I think that clearly the prophetic tradition took that and maximized it and elevated it. But I think there is something there. All of those quotes that say don’t do this because you were a slave in Egypt have to do with dealing with someone, and you can argue whether it’s economically less off or from a power point of view are less off.

So maybe if I had to translate what you’re saying, it’s not only economics. I think it also has to do with people who just don’t have the resources, the power structure.

AM Right. It’s about a power structure. It’s about an inequality in a power structure. Now, you’re right. Economics is a piece of that.

16:25 GS So the other big phrase that he says is, I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see again. Now was Isaiah 40.

Let every valley be raised, every hill and mount made low, let the rugged ground become level, let the ridges become plain, the presence of God shall appear and all flesh as one shall behold for God has spoken. So he is quoting Isaiah And the amazing thing about this verse in Isaiah is that we’ve quoted it before. We quoted even the story of Agnon, Ha’akov le’mishur, making the crooked straight. But clearly, this verse, similarly to the one from Amos about the water going down and finding its level, it seems to me that it’s very much about leveling the playing field, to use an economic term.

And that’s what comes off very clear. The other verse that I quoted from Amos, which actually blew me away, which God talks about, to me, O Israelites, you are just like the Cushites. So the Israelites are just like the blacks, declares God. True, I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Kaphtor and the Arameans from Kir. So getting back to your point, Rabbi, yes, the prophets really did go a long way in universalizing the message.

AM: See, to me, that’s a really important point. Because your point of the way Martin Luther King uses this story, the truth of the matter is that 3,000 years ago,

GS: That’s what the prophets did. And he would not argue with you. He was not trying to be an innovator. Yes. I think in a sense, you know, when his other speech when he talks about being to the mountaintop and I might not make it, he clearly saw himself as a Moses figure, but I don’t think it was out of any sense of pride or feeling that he was a great, I think it was out of responsibility and out of the sense that he was put into this place from history and he had kind of no choice. But definitely he was seen that way and definitely he plays that role.

And getting back to the verse from Amos that I quoted before, that he says the Israelites are like the Cushites and like the Philistines and the Arameans, and meaning to say every nation has its pharaoh, every nation has its Exodus, and has to find its Moses, he ends by saying This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, my country, tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing, land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside let freedom sing, and then this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, When we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last. So that was how he ended the speech, and he really is talking about equality, of everybody should be treated the same, you know, and again, we can’t but help, but think of what the rhetoric is today, when a person of a certain color skin, let’s say is white, is automatically targeted as whether it’s a colonialist, or privileged, or an exploiter, and everyone who has a slightly more pigmentation is already put in a different field. What he was saying rings so much more powerfully in my mind, that the idea is that we should not look at the color of one’s skin, but of the character inside.

And I think that is a message that he could easily take from the prophets, which I interpret in terms of everything he’s been saying as this kind of equalizing wave, and I think it’s a message that rings true especially today.

21:54 AM: There’s no question that well, let’s take a few things. It rings true, especially today. And you know, that’s something about the eternity of these messages, because it comes from the Torah, and it’s elaborated upon by the prophets. And then Martin Luther King makes it famous 60 years ago. And it’s just as true in 2024. So I mean, I think that that’s about the fact that the messages of the Torah, the power of the Torah isn’t in the moment, but it’s for all times.

GS: I agree. The only thing that I will say, and now I’m going to get a little bit into this interview that I discussed earlier that he gave at the 68th Annual Convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism. The way I understand him now, after reading these texts, is that clearly economic equity, economic justice, and equality before the law were what he was aiming for. Not revenge, not flipping the switch, not flipping the table. He understood that we can all be Egyptians, we can all be pharaohs, we can all be children of Israel, we can all be Moses’s.

Discussion on Middle East Peace and Economic Security

GS: And what we need to find is the path of justice. And I think he was asked at this convention about Israel and the Arabs. And as I said in the intro, it was after the 1967 war, and everybody, when they talk after the 1967 war, says that Israel was now no longer the David, it became the Goliath. And I think that’s not such a great model. I think the model that he was looking for is more of this exodus model and one of making equality. So he says as follows in answer to the question of where he stands on the Middle East.

I think it is necessary to say that what is basic and what is needed in the Middle East is peace. Peace for Israel is one thing. Peace for the Arab side of that world is another thing. Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the greatest outposts of democracy in the world and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.

Peace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality. On the other hand, we must see what peace for the Arabs means in a real sense of security on another level. Peace for the Arabs means the kind of economic security that they so desperately need. These nations, as you know, are part of that third world of hunger, of disease, of illiteracy. I think that as long as these conditions exist, there will be tensions. There will be the endless quest to find scapegoats. So there is a need for a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, where we lift those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder and bring them into the mainstream of economic security.

I just thought that, number one, it rang so true, but the reason it rings so true is he doesn’t talk about states, he doesn’t talk about sovereignty, he doesn’t talking about having, he talks about economic security. For the Arabs and to me it was just, it wasn’t a kind of a detour from his message. It was the message that he had been preaching in all of the writings that we’ve discussed tonight and so many others. That the law has to be equal and there has to be economic security and if there isn’t then you get into desperation and violence.

Discussion on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Views on Black-Jewish Relations

GS: I was just kind of blown away from that, and I do quote the whole—I have a source for the whole interview, it was a public interview, ten days before he was killed, and it’s in the Sephira notes. The only thing that I’ll also add that also rang so true was one of the questions was that there were already in those days radical Black Panthers and others who were calling him a whitey, is how it’s referred to in the interview, you can call it an Uncle Tom, that he was kind of being part of the white world.

And he gets a chance to talk about color. He says, on the Middle East crisis, we have various responses. The response of some of the so-called militants again, does not represent the position of the vast majority of Negroes. There are some who are color-consumed, and they see a kind of mystique in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned. We do not follow that course in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.” He goes on to say, talking about anti-Semitism, it is not only that anti-Semitism is immoral, though that alone is enough.

It is used to divide Negro and Jew, who have effectively collaborated in the struggle for justice. It injures Negroes because it upholds the doctrine of racism, which they have the greatest stake in destroying. There isn’t anyone in this country more likely to understand our struggle than Jews. Whatever progress we’ve made so far as a people, their support has been essential, probably more than any other ethnic group. The Jewish community has been sympathetic and has stood as an ally to the Negro in this struggle.

It was just very, very refreshing, Rabbi.

27:58 AM: I mean, that’s so interesting, of course, because just then 1968 is when, you know, the Black Power, like you mentioned, the Black Power movement was just gaining force. It really gained force only after the assassination of Martin Luther King, but they all of a sudden didn’t see the Jews as partners anymore. There was a famous case in Ocean Hill, Brownsville, in the school district. In which the blacks took over the school district and they try to push out the Jewish teachers because they didn’t see the Jews as being their allies anymore.

So he’s really, he’s talking about really what we would call a much healthier vision of Jews and blacks being partners. And that’s an amazing image that he has of Israel after 67, when things were so bad for the Arabs after 67, but he turns that biblical vision into a vision for contemporary Israel. That’s amazingly powerful.

GS: And in the full interview, he literally has a whole page on black power, and he says it is a terrible bumper sticker. And he even goes so far as to say that any phrase that you have that takes five minutes to explain what we mean is like a joke that you have to explain. It’s not very effective. It’s a fascinating, fascinating interview, and to me it’s a fascinating reboot, but it also, as we’re in Shemot, as we’re discussing the Exodus and approaching Martin Luther King Day, it gives us all, I think, pause to look back at the Exodus story and the traditions that we share in the world shares at explaining, understanding, be inspired by the Exodus story.

And I think it is a better paradigm and model than maybe a David and a Goliath There are some of the, as you research the sources, it talks about why Moses was picked and not a David, why not a king but actually a popular ruler. It talks about the whole dynamics between the South and the North. He’s asked about anti-Semitism in the interview, and he says, we don’t have anti-Semitism down South. He says and he explains what happened when Negroes went to the north and they went into tenements that might have been vacated by Jews and the Jews became their landlords and the pricing was different.

And then he talks about, you know, when there’s one bad apple, you can’t blame a whole race because that’s called, wait, wait for it, racism. So, it’s just, I think, very—it’s like when you look back at your biblical sources, I think looking back at a speech like this, looking back at a man like this, and his message is very refreshing, and if you can call it a reboot, you can call it a hazara. The point is, I think it’s important from time to time to do that. And I felt blessed last night when I was thinking about what to talk about.

I will say that there is another book that I quote in my sources, and it’s from a friend of mine, Dumasani Washington. You might remember, Rabbi, we had him on one year to discuss Parshat Noach. He has an absolutely amazing book called Zionism and the Black Church, and it is a source book and an inspiration so that none of you think that this close working relationship between Jews and the African Americans has ended. That it’s a thing of the past. Read his book and go to his website. It is happening even today.

And so there is a light at the end of that tunnel as well. And we just have to keep talking about our sources and looking for inspiration for our great leaders in a generation that is so lacking in them.

32:27 AM: And I think the answer is, you know, in these days, which has so much darkness, you know, to look at the sources and to know that there’s light is really a very important lesson for all of us. So thank you so much, Jeffrey. Next week from the UAE, I look forward to sharing Parshat Bo. Shabbat Shalom, everybody, and thank you so much.

GS: Shabbat Shalom, and I must say that since I was kind of inspired by the Torah.com where he said every year he listens to this speech, so here it is. Shabbat shalom.

Martin Luthur King Jr. I Have A Dream speech https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety