Exodus and the Legacy of MLK
How fitting it is that, in our annual cycle of Torah reading, some part of the Exodus narrative always coincides with the celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Some call the Exodus story the “master narrative” of the Jewish people because it tells the story of m’avdut l’herut-how a people can move from slavery and oppression to freedom and liberation.
The rabbis tell us that Pharoah is not the only thing that stands between slavery and freedom. Moses learns early on that, perhaps, the bigger obstacle, is to convince his own people that you can never resign yourself to your own oppression. Even after leaving Egypt, the children of Israel continue to romanticize all that was good in Egypt. It reminds us that freedom can be more frightening than slavery.
Delivered as the dvar torah by Rabbi Sid on January 17, 2026 at Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation (Bethesda, MD) on the shabbat commemorating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The article was published in the Times of Israel on January 20, 2026.
Dr. King was a modern-day Moses and his job was just as hard. Not only did he have to make a nation realize that it could not be a true democracy as long as racial discrimination and hatred was tolerated in both the hearts of American citizens as well as in the laws of this country. He also had to convince Black Americans that non-violent civil disobedience was the only path to liberation. No small task!
We are living in a time that provides far too many reminders that the path to redemption is slow and hard. Sometimes we take two steps forward. Recently, we have been taking at least that many steps backwards.
Last week, an arsonist set fire to Beth Israel, Mississippi’s oldest and largest synagogue. Two Torahs were destroyed, five more damaged. The library became a charred ruin. It was not the first time that Beth Israel of Jackson, Miss. was firebombed. The KKK set fire to the same synagogue in 1967 and, several weeks later, bombed the house of Beth Israel’s rabbi, Perry Nussbaum. Why? Because Rabbi Nussbaum was a prominent activist in the fight for civil rights and desegregation. He also helped to raise money for the dozens of Black churches in the South that were vandalized and/or bombed by the KKK.
Rachel Fink, a Tel-Aviv based journalist who grew up in Baton Rouge, LA and who knows about the nature of Southern Jewish life wrote this about last week’s bombing in Jackson: “Within hours, faith leaders from across the city had reached out, offering the dislocated Jewish community their spaces for services. Outside the charred entrance, bouquets of flowers lay on the ground. Someone left a simple note: “I’m so very sorry.” The arsonist sought to destroy the most prominent Jewish building in Jackson. But he grossly underestimated so much: our long legacy of resilience; the unbreakable commitment we have to our faith and our values; and most importantly, the Jewish — and Southern — tradition of caring for one’s neighbor, of standing arm in arm to overcome injustice and hatred.”
What could be more heinous than to bomb a house of worship? One of the greatest tragedies of the civil rights struggle led by Dr. King was the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL by the KKK in 1963. The Book of Exodus starts with the line: Eleh shmot, “these are the names”. I believe the line is there to remind us of how many human beings will die in Egypt, both due to slavery but also in the struggle for freedom. It is an early version of the protest phrase: “Say their names.”
Four young Black girls died in the 1963 bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church. Let us say their names: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11).
These, of course, are not the only Black fatalities in the fight for civil rights in this country. Just take a trip to the Legacy Museum, created by Bryan Stevenson in Montgomery, AL and you will learn that there is hardly a county in the United States that did not see Black people lynched simply because of the color of their skin.
It is time to proclaim loudly that all hatred and intolerance-against Jews, against Blacks, against Muslims, against immigrants, against LGBT-identified people, against anyone, is of one piece. Dr. Jonathan Judaken, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, is a Jew who was raised in apartheid, South Africa. He argues persuasively in his book, Critical Theories of Anti-Semitism, that there is no such thing as “the new Anti-Semitism”. It has been with us for centuries. And, he argues, its roots are intertwined with the history of racism and xenophobia, the ever-present fear of the outsider.
Indeed. All around us are signs of tyranny, echoes of Pharoah. We ignore it at our very peril. The Trump Administration is actively trying to re-write American history, suppressing the story of America’s racist past as they change signage at national parks and, now, at the Smithsonian Museums. But, as we read in the 85th chapter of the Book of Psalms: “The truth will rise up from the earth”.
Jews and Blacks have long worked together to advance freedom and opportunity in this country. For both of our communities, the Biblical story of Exodus is a model for how we move from slavery to freedom, m’avdut l’cherut.
We need to re-assert that alliance and broaden it to include people of every race, religion and class so that we can say, as Dr. King often quoted the Hebrew prophet, Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”