opinion
From Moses to Memphis, the Work
of Liberation Remains Unfinished
Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein
by-studio / AdobeStock
R ereading Exodus this month in synagogue
reminds me of when I first learned about
Moses’ role in freeing the Children of Israel
who had been enslaved to Pharaoh. I grew up
in Monsey, New York. My mother was Black and
my father was white; my family identified with the
Chabad-Lubavitch movement. I discovered the
Passover story through ultra-Orthodox coloring
books that depicted the liberation of the ancient
Israelites from bondage in Egypt.

One illustration depicted Moses as an 18th-century
Chasidic Jew clad in a shtreimel (fur hat) and long
kapote (robe), with abundant sidelocks flowing down
to his shoulders. I brought home my masterpiece,
fully crayoned in purple, and showed it proudly to my
mother. She gave me a puzzled look and said, “You
know, Moses didn’t look like this. He had brown skin
like mine.”
It was an enlightening idea that hit me like a
thunderbolt. Seeing Moses as a Black person
changed my whole idea of Jewish history and
religion in one fell swoop — it made me feel my Black
and Jewish roots even more profoundly, and that I
was a descendant of great Jewish and African men
and women who founded our tradition.

As time went on, though, and I went “all in” and
studied to become a rabbi, I realized that Moses’ skin
color mattered much less than his role as a liberator.

Although many Jews do see in color, Judaism does
not. The way to follow in his footsteps, I grasped, was
to become an educator, a leader and a champion
for freedom. I’ve devoted my career to empowering
Jewish communities across the continent to become
more welcoming and inclusive, to overcome racism
and prejudice, and to create a more just, equitable
and loving society.

The Biblical narrative of the Exodus is a call to
stand for freedom and against tyranny in every
generation. It says, in effect, “You are able to speak,
and to be carried away on the wings of words from
millennia ago, bound to no Pharaoh’s story, but liber-
ated by your own.”
Neither my Black nor Jewish forebears could have
imagined how far their descendants would come in
terms of participation and even leadership in our
society. As the Black visual artist Brandon Odums has
reflected, “We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”
But there is, alas, still so far to go, as last month’s
brutal killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the
Our commitment to
creating a better world —
making it to the
Promised Land —
must always be so much
more than merely
skin deep.

police in Memphis reminds us. Both Black History
Month and the Book of Exodus teach that we can
only fulfill our destiny if we fight for the liberation of
all peoples.

Earlier this month, we celebrated Shabbat Shira, in
which we read about the Children of Israel’s mirac-
ulous escape from Egypt by crossing the Red Sea. I
was reminded of what the late 20th-century Slonimer
Rebbe, Sholom Noach Berezovsky, said about the
ancient Hebrews wading into the water because they
had faith not just in their hearts and minds, but in their
bodies — in their very bones, he said.

What does it mean to believe with your bones?
The Prophet Jeremiah declared that the word of God
was like “fire shut up in his bones” (20:9). Dr. Martin
Luther King quoted Jeremiah in his last speech,
“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” saying, “Somehow
the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his
bones. And whenever injustice is around, he tell it.”
King gave that speech on April 3, 1968 — in Memphis
— on the night before he was assassinated.

Early in the speech, King imagined “God’s children
in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of
Egypt through, or rather across, the Red Sea, through
the wilderness on toward the Promised Land.” He
concluded with these uncannily prescient words: “I
want you to know tonight that we as a people will
get to the Promised Land. So, I’m happy tonight, I’m
not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of
the Lord.”
Our commitment to creating a better world —
making it to the Promised Land — must always be
so much more than merely skin deep. Only when
we believe in our bones that change is possible, and
that we can be agents of that change, will fear melt
away and we will be able to defeat the Pharaohs
who seek to deprive us of our dignity, whether in
Memphis or anywhere in our land.

We shall reach the Promised Land — someday.

We shall recognize that we are all God’s children—
someday. We shall overcome — someday.

May that day be very soon and may we all unite in
joy, peace and celebration to usher it in. ■
Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein is the rabbinic scholar and
public affairs adviser for the Jewish Federations of
North America.

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