Walkin' in Memphis

When I wrote this reflection, I was in the land of the Delta Blues: Memphis, Tennessee – the setting for this year’s convention of the American Conference of Cantors. Memphis is the birthplace of Rock and Roll, home of the Blues and of Elvis; but as I learned during my brief sojourn here, it is also a model of community, generosity, and solidarity.


Our time in Memphis began with Rick Recht’s “Tear Down the Walls” concert, featuring the inspiring voices of cantors and gospel singers, and supported by a choir members from Memphis synagogues and churches. During the concert, area ministers, teens, and Rabbi Micah Greenstein of Temple Israel shared not only their visions of a Memphis free of poverty, hopelessness, and racial prejudice, but also passionately described how clergy of all faiths are laboring together with the community to bring this dream to fruition. Having been part of several interfaith musical events, I have always wondered just how much change is really put into motion by these moments of our coming together. In Memphis, it is clear that the clergy not only talk the talk, but walk the walk – hand in hand.



The next day of our convention was devoted to witnessing this holy work. We boarded buses first to the National Civil Rights Museum. As our bus pulled up along the side of the museum, I immediately realized that I was gazing upon that metal railing so familiar from photos and television images. We were disembarking at the Lorraine Motel, the site of Dr. King’s assassination, into which the museum has been incorporated. I felt as though I’d been punched in the stomach, and for a few moments I could neither breathe, nor speak.

We began with an address by Rabbi Micah Greenstein who sits on the board of the museum, leads tours, and serves as a fount of information about the history of the relationship shared by the Jewish and African American communities. Touring the museum we wove our way through a timeline of images from the early days of slave trade through decade after decade of struggle. The most heartrending part of the tour came at the end when we arrived at the actual rooms where Martin Luther King and his friend and colleague, Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, were staying that fateful day – Rooms 306 and 307. Just the night before, King had delivered his “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech, which he closed with these words: “...I would like to live a long life...But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And 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!” The words were still sounding in my ears when I realized I had just heard them that morning from the Torah reading from Parashat Pinchas: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Ascend these heights of Abarim and view the land that I have given to the Israelite people. When you have seen it, you, too, shall be gathered to your kin, just as your brother Aaron was.” Like Moses, Dr. King did not live to see the work forged by those passionate men and women who came after him, but how fortunate and blessed I feel to have been able to witness it first hand. For more information on the National Civil Rights Museum, go to http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org.