Rosh Hashanah, Day 1, 1 Tishri 5776
My doctor told me that I needed more exercise. I don’t know if this is exactly what he had in mind.
The temperature was in the 90°s. So was the humidity. I was told that the pavement reached 109°. I had walked twelve miles. For five of them, I carried the Torah. I had traveled to Augusta, Georgia, to take part in the Journey for Justice, a march of almost 1,000 miles from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The NAACP put this march together; the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, known as the RAC, organized rabbis and congregants to participate. Over 200 rabbis will have done so by the time the journey is finished. We have the responsibility of carrying that Torah scroll. But we aren’t the only ones. Jews and Gentiles, blacks and whites, have each taken their turn carrying the word of God, seeking to make its promise real throughout our land.
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