By Rabbi Mitchell M. Hurvitz
We live in a world where too many people suffer from spiritual cataracts; their vision becomes clouded, and they are unable to perceive the divine spark that equally resides in all.
Especially problematic are the religious extremists who claim to possess the sole cure to that which spiritually ails us, and they falsely assert a faith-based monopoly on how God is present in our lives.
As if God can only listen to one language.
But God is everywhere.
As I lead our nursery school children in song: “God is here, there, and everywhere. God is up, down, right, left, and all around!”
God is not limited to one group’s faith tradition, and faith is not intended to be a fortress to keep others out.
Rather, faith is a prescription to help us clearly see God’s light in our lives.
For Jews, our faith tradition emphasizes sanctification, and our Torah is the lens by which we can focus on how our world can continually be improved upon when we live a life fulfilling all of God’s commandments.
Each mitzvah is as vital as the next.
Our neighbors possess their own sacred traditions, which enable them to see clearly how God guides them in leading their sacred and moral lives.
If we try to force our faith “glasses” onto another, the world becomes a blur. But when we wear our own particularistic lenses with integrity, we discover a miraculous unity.
We realize that while we may look through different windows, we are all sharing and staring at the same sacred space.
No one needs to see “eye-to-eye.” All must see “heart-to-heart.”
On Monday, we honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
He was a religious man who understood that faith without sacred action is like a body without breath.
My favorite image is of Dr. King marching in Selma with his friend, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, arm in arm.
Together, they put their shared faith, even though they practiced different particularistic traditions, into concrete, prayerful action.
As Rabbi Heschel said of the occasion of their march, “I am praying with my feet.”
Prayer is essential, but only because it leads to sacred living.
Two different religious leaders with varying prescriptions of faith, yet their visions of God and the world were identical.
They each perceived that you cannot say you love God if you stand idly by while God’s children suffer.
God doesn’t require what we believe, but how we morally practice our beliefs.
Dr. King’s “Dream” was not a tranquil sleep; instead, it was a spiritual alarm to wake up.
He proclaimed that the foundation of human conflict-resolution must be love. And, the blessings we experience in our lives are not intended to be hoarded, but to be shared with others.
No one can become holy if they are not also helpful.
It is time for all of us to ensure that we have in place the correct faith prescriptions appropriate to us.
It is a prescription that will let us see the path by which we walk away from anger, aggression, or a sense of superiority, and toward love, kindness, and the understanding that all of us are created equally in God’s image.
Let us see our faith’s 20/20 vision forward, and talk and walk our prayers into action.
Together, arm-in-arm let us pray with our feet until the dream of the prophets and the dream of Dr. King becomes the reality of our world.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Mitch
Temple Sholom’s Senior Rabbi Mitchell M. Hurvitz is a scholar, teacher, community activist and preacher, and is recognized as one of the prominent religious leaders in the Greenwich area and beyond.
