Fifty-seven years ago today, shots rang out at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, claiming the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
During King’s funeral, a tape recording was played in which King spoke of how he wanted to be remembered after his death: “I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others…”
The book of Leviticus begins with a simple word –“ויקרא – VaYikra – and God called.” When you look inside a Torah scroll the א – Aleph at the end of the word is written smaller than the other letters. The Kabbalists ask why God’s call to Moses includes that small letter א – Aleph?
The א – Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet, is a silent consonant. Like God, it has no formal sound or substance of its own. It is given voice only by the vowel sounds that might attach themselves to it.
And in the universe, God also has no sound. God calls to us from the inside, and it is we then who are given the awesome power to give voice to God’s wisdom and God’s truth.
So the 18th century Hasidic master Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl wrote in his famous work Me’or Einayim: “That is why ‘God called to Moses’ is written with a miniature א – Aleph. God, the cosmic Aleph is present in miniature form within each Israelite, calling us to return.”
Slavery compels us to heed the commanding voices of task-masters and forces outside of us. But as free people, we need only listen to that small א – Aleph, that Divine Voice that calls to us from inside our soul.
So what did Moses hear God call him to do? To give himself over to a life of service.
Not service to a task-master. Not service to his own selfish needs, and wants, and desires. But service to something Gadol – something higher and greater than himself: service to his God, and service to his people.
The sermon from which that tape-recorded message was played was called “The Drum Major” sermon, the last sermon Dr. King preached from his pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church on February 4, 1968. In it, he taught that the greatest among us are those who heed the call to service.
“I like … that definition of greatness [because] it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. … You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”
Greatness is achieved not through power or wealth or prestige but through service. Greatness is achieved not by what we amass but by what we give.
Greatness is achieved by listening to that small א – Aleph calling to us from inside, demanding we open our hearts as wide as possible to grace and to love.
With hearts wide-open, we will see the infinite value and worth of each and every person, and feel compelled to raise up and honor each other’s humanity.
With hearts wide-open, we will share in the plight of the vulnerable and the suffering, and feel compelled to protect the weak, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, and redeem the oppressed.
With hearts wide-open, we will recognize all that is broken in our fractured world, and feel compelled to take on as our mission the responsibility to repair the pieces that are in our power to restore and to heal.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Dan Levin
Temple Beth El of Boca Raton
