TvO Co-Presidents Patti Jacobson and Diana Levy gave this invocation at GIAC’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Breakfast on January 17, 2009.

Good morning! We want to thank you on behalf of Congregation Tikkun v’Or, the Ithaca Reform Temple, for the privilege of being invited to give this morning’s invocation. This inspiring annual community event that honors the work of Dr King, and all the wonderful work accomplished by GIAC throughout the year, keeps his vision moving forward. We want to honor and offer blessings for the visible work of this weekend and for the invisible work that makes such opportunities possible and that goes on daily.

This year something monumental is being accomplished in our country. Few of us thought we would see our dream of an African-American president come to pass in our lifetime. The approaching inauguration of Barak Obama is cause for great celebration and deep emotion. We are hopeful, and yet there is so much work to do, as segregation in schools is as bad in this country as it has ever been, and poverty and joblessness is on a steep rise. There is urgent work that needs to be done in our own community to undo the injustices of racism.

The work is challenging and our voices, our hearts and our hands, in fact our entire spirit, is needed both for action and for prayer that inspires and guides.

Rabbi David Saperstein delivered an invocation at the Democratic National Convention on the day of Barak Obama’s acceptance speech. He reminded us that the separation is slight between prayer and action when he said:
“We’re mindful of the admonition in Isaiah where God says, 'I don’t want your fast and your sacrifice. I want you to deal your bread to the hungry, tear apart the chains of the oppressed.' " And Leviticus 19 tells us that to be holy in the way God is holy means to set aside a corner of our fields for the poor and homeless, to pay the laborer a timely and fair wage, and to remove stumbling blocks. These are religious activities just as much as prayer is. They are all woven together.

After participating in the civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of this century’s great religious figures and a close colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, said, “It felt like my feet were praying.” Prayer is not just the communication we have with God; it is also the work we do to make God’s values real to the world. I think God listens to both kinds of prayer with equal joy.

Heschel, so influenced by Dr. King, spoke of the equality that “his feet were praying for” in this way:
“It is not humanity that endows the sky with inalienable stars.  It is not society that bestows upon every person inalienable rights. Equality of all people is not due to their innocence or virtue.  Equality of humankind is due to God’s love and commitment to all people.”

Dr King’s spoke out for equality and he spoke out for peace. We continue looking for what it will take to move Dr. King’s and our vision forward.

Here is a Jewish tale of a rabbi who was asked by a farmer when the world would truly know peace. The rabbi replied, “Follow me.” He then brought the farmer to the side of a brook, put his hand on the farmer’s head, and pressed it into the water until the farmer came up gasping for breath. The rabbi then said: “This is your answer.” When man wants peace, when he wants peace as much as you just wanted air, when he comes up gasping for peace, when he is ready to give everything in himself to have peace, as you have given to have air, he will have peace.”

What do we each gasp for? What is it that each of us wants with our all heart and souls? What is it that we each need as much as the air which keeps us alive?

Many who are gathered here today, inspired by Dr King’s vision work tirelessly to create a world that will truly know equality.
May there be a time when all people give everything in themselves to end racism. May there be a time when equality is the air that we breathe.

Oh God, you have called us to peace, for you are peace itself.
May we have the vision to see, that each of us,
in some measure, can help to realize these aims.
Where there are ignorance and superstition,
       Let there be enlightenment and knowledge.
Where there are prejudice and hatred,
       Let there be acceptance and love.
Where there are fear and suspicion,
       Let there be confidence and trust.
Where there are tyranny and oppression,
       Let there be freedom and justice.
Where there are poverty and disease, Let there be prosperity and hope.
Where there are strife and discord, Let there be harmony and peace.
-- Mishkan Tefillah, CCAR 2003