God's Place: The City
by Joshua Hammerman
The following address was delivered
by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El, Stamford, at
a joint service between Temple Beth El and Bethel A.M.E.,
held at the church on December 19, 1993. The service was
the second in a series of cooperative ventures between
the two congregations, aimed at strengthening the bonds
between the Jewish and African American communities of
Stamford.
I am so happy to be here at the invitation of your
spiritual leader. As we've gotten to know each other,
Reverend Winton Hill and I have come to realize that
there is so much more that unites us than divides us. We
each run around like crazy and fight to squeeze in time
for our families. We each care most of all about the
children, our own, and yours too. And we each grieve at
what we see happening to our children, when we see them
exposed to violence, hunger, neglect and hatred. We want
our children to feel a special pride in who they are and
where they come from. To take the legacy of their people
and transform it into the greatest love of all, the love
of self leading to a love for humanity. We are so
fortunate to have Winton Hill our community. He is, in
every way, a soulmate and friend.
The Beth El - Bethel relationship was forged by a
dream. Several dreams, really. The dream of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., to be sure, and of generations of Jews
and African Americans who have worked together, suffered
together and grown together in their efforts to build a
more just, more compassionate America for their children.
But there is one more dream that we share, one
embedded in our very identity, our name, and our Bible.
It was Jacob's dream that occurred in the place he called
Beit El, Beth-el, the House of the Lord. And in
Jacob's dream, a ladder was set on earth with its top
stretching forth unto heaven, and angels of God were
ascending and descending on it.
When Jacob awoke, he understood what he hadn't before,
that God's presence could be felt in a place utterly
ordinary, seemingly earth-bound, and a simple place,
cluster of stones, really, became holy.
Our dream today is nothing less than to make Jacob's
Beth-el a living concept in our living city. We stand
together, as Stamford's two Beth-els, committed to
transforming Stamford into a house of God. We must build
a ladder to heaven. Right here. Right now.
Ancient holy cities, Jerusalem, Mecca, Benares,
Peking, all were built around sacred spaces, which
allowed for a feeling of intersection, where the
horizontal plane could meet the vertical. Where people
could remove their shoes in the knowledge that this place
was God's place. In those days, the city came to
symbolize hope, reaffirmation and resolve. In recent
times, cities have lost their ability to build those
sacred ladders, choosing instead to build secular palaces
of concrete and glass, to be centers of commerce rather
than compassion, coming to symbolize corruption,
confrontation and despair. That is precisely what has
happened to New York, where the politics of fear have
become the only means of motivating the populace.
But Stamford is not New York. Stamford is smaller.
Stamford does still care. Stamford still puts people
first, or at least it can. And Stamford has two very
different Beth Els who wish to bring the entire city to
an understanding of how we can build that ladder to
heaven.
We can become a healing city, a place where all
citizens feel sustained and nurtured in its midst. We can
become an organic city, not of disparate neighborhoods
and conflicting groups, but a collage where the whole is
far greater than the sum of its parts. The great cities
of the past all felt organic and whole, down to the last
detail, the restaurants, the sidewalks, the
neighborhoods, the gardens, the walls. In Jerusalem, for
instance, there is not a single stone that is not
tear-stained, whether it adorn an ancient shrine or a
modern cafe, it is all Jerusalem, all reaching up to the
heavens. Our city can reach heavenward too, but only if
we provide the tears, the laughter, the kindness, and
imprint them on every stone and girder.
It all comes together today. Today we are not African
American and Jew, we are Stamford. And if we can come
together, the rest of the city will have to follow. If
they see that we can care for each other, we who are so
different, we who still have somewhat differing agendas,
but we who do care for each other, if they can see us
holding hands, if we can pull this off, the rest of the
city will take notice. Like the Maccabees and martyrs of
old, we can change the world.
This city can care for its homeless, for its
sick, for its downtrodden, for its living and for its
dying. And we can help it.
In his book, "A Vision of Britain," Prince
Charles says, the "Our towns and cities can be
restored to places where people matter once more and
where our spirits find tranquillity and
inspiration." Today we share that inspiration. We
can become an oasis of tranquillity.
New eras have begun in South Africa and the Middle
East. Almost simultaneously, the two international arenas
that have concerned our peoples the most have
miraculously become arenas of reconciliation. Our
relationship will no longer be distracted by them.
Instead we can focus on building bridges. This is the
second joint service our congregations have held this
year. In 1994, we hope to follow this up with more
dialogue, more involvement, more coming together -- with
your help. Please join in our effort. We need it. Our
city needs it. We can become a model of caring and
coexistence between Jews and African Americans -- sort of
like the U Conn basketball team, which has had more
Israeli imports than a Kosher supermarket. Let's follow
their lead as they rise to the top.
The writer James McPherson noted that there has been
of late an unfortunate tendency among Jews toward greater
racism and among blacks toward greater antisemitism, and
that it can be traced to same thing: each group is trying
to join the majority. The rest of the world hates, so
we'll hate too. We can't deny these trends, nor can we
deny that the temptation exists to hate. There may be
comfort in numbers but we, as two peoples who have seen
the results of senseless hatred, we've got to fight it.
We've got to love each other, even if that is just one
more thing that places us against the tide.
For the sake of our city, we've got to end the hating.
For the sake of the children, we've got to end the
hating.
For the sake of God, we've got to end the hating.
Today, right here, right now, we each are adding one
rung to Jacob's ladder. And together, we stretch forth to
the heavens, as our city becomes a House of God.
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