The Unfinished business of the Civil War

January 10, 2003

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

What do Moses, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King have in common?

I picked these three for obvious reasons:

• the debate whether or not a statue of Lincoln and his son who visited Richmond shortly after its fall to Union troops should be created and placed at the Tredegar Iron Works Civil War Memorial;
• the debate whether or not Chesterfield County should use Martin Luther King Day as a snow day;

and, we are reading the section of the Torah that fueled both Lincoln and King, with its central figure of Moses.

Perhaps its is because I was born north of the Mason-Dixon Line; or perhaps because my personal family came here forty years after the war was over; or, perhaps because when, in 1960, Life Magazine published its epic serial entitledThe Civil War, I really thought the war was over. Or maybe because boys/men from all the states, regardless of origin shed their common blood on the battlegrounds of the world, from Europe to Korea to Viet Nam to Afghanistan, & now wait for Iraq, I really thought the war was over. Maybe when Truman ordered the integration of the armed forces, or maybe when the Cabinet includes several "people of color," now I really thought the war was over.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Abraham and Martin still need Moses.

The Statue.

You must understand my fascination with statues, especially big ones. I grew up looking at big statues because we have them particularly in Brooklyn and Manhattan: statues of shapes, statutes of men on horses – very big men and very big horses; statues of George Washington. I saw statues before I saw the monuments on Monument Avenue. Statues bespeak and represent history and values. The larger the image, the greater the message. The difference in size of the Ashe monument juxtaposed to the others is striking and meaningful. So what is so wrong about the human sized statue of Lincoln and his son, sitting on a bench, in clearly a soulful and mournful pose? Nothing.

If they had proposed putting a life-sized or larger or smaller statues of General U.S. Grant at the intersection of Malvern and Monument I could understand. He was the military leader that ultimately did defeat the Confederacy. And language is important. It was not the North defeating the South. If so there could never be a reunification and a true unity. There were two ideologies that split the family: the Union verses the Confederacy. And while Abraham Lincoln was the president of the Union, his was one of the few voices that sought to end the bitterness and the divisiveness that wracked this country for decades before the war itself.

I thought that it was 'neat' that his name was Abraham because I immediately linked him to Abraham of the Torah. I saw a picture of Lincoln and thought of Abraham pleading with God not to destroy the cities of S'dom and Amorrah ( Sodom and Gomorrah). I heard the name Lincoln and I saw Abraham treading slowly and painfully with Isaac knowing, without a prophetic vision that it wouldn't happen, that his son was supposed to die. I imagined that Lincoln's and Abraham's faces were etched the same way. While I am not sure of Lincoln's religiosity, in his great statements of "charity to all and malice towards none," I heard echoes of the Torah's commandments not to hate your neighbor in your heart andlove thy neighbor as thyself. Lincoln's speeches rang with the pathos of Job who endured the death of his wife and children and the loss of his property. The Emancipation Proclamation echoed the Rabbinic feelings towards the divine image of humanity. He came to Richmond as the president of a country to be reunited, not as the 'conquering hero.' Perhaps if his statue was placed in juxtaposition to the leaders of the Confederacy I could understand local sentiment. But the choice of its location, size and posture make it appropriate, even necessary. The fighting did not end at Appomatox. It lingered on until the news reached every place. The War did not end there either. And Lincoln's assassination, like that of Kennedy's and King changed the destiny of this nation for the worse. Maybe Lincoln's statue should be subtitled 'a study in the pain of leadership,' or 'mourning for our dead,' or like Peter Seeger's song (he wrote it) 'When will they every learn?'

The Day.

When I heard Martin Luther King speak, I heard every prophet in our Bible come alive. They lived in his voice, loud, demanding, poetic, the rising of the crescendo of their words in the market places of Samaria and the courtyards of Jerusalem; just he spoke in English and they in Hebrew. Clearly one hundred years had passed and the promises of justice and equality, of equity and honesty inherent in the foundation of this country had not been fulfilled. Every time I heard Martin Luther King speak the values enunciated by our great prophets who are represented in the stained glass windows of our magnificent sanctuary came alive. And our Torah was his textbook: the epic saga of redemption of our people from Egyptian slavery was the motif and foundation for his demand for racial equality for education, employment and housing. If God redeemed us, so, too, they deserved and would ultimately be redeemed. The music called "Negro Spirituals" is based on Torah, with the most famous "Go Down Moses." Moses was certainly not as white as me. People who live in the Middle East are all a lot darker than we are. Perhaps Martin looked more like Moses! Why do both of their names begin with the letter M? Maybe we need to reconstruct the image in our minds of Moses before Pharaoh. Maybe he was black. Then imagine him saying "Let my people go!"

What is the difference of Moses standing in Pharaoh's court and Martin standing at the reflecting pool?

What is the difference of the miracles in Egypt and the marches, speeches around this country that changed the face of America?

What is the difference of the prophets declaring: "Have we not one father?" and the heroic speech "I Have A Dream?"

Nothing.

If this country can recognize Washington and Lincoln, then it should recognize King, too. It's just too bad that they are spent shopping, and not for national renewal. Chesterfield County should use a different day if it needs to make up for a snow day.

Moses:

I am always amazed at the timelessness of our Tanach and our faith. Perhaps it is because we reread the Torah year after year, all the heroes and heroines never really die. They are always speaking. Adam and Eve are just created. Abraham is still arguing with God. Moses is demanding freedom from slavery so the Israelites can be faithful to our God. It doesn't matter that they are not caught on video. Perhaps it is better that they are not, so that we can each imagine them at different ages, in different voices, in different colors. But they and their messages are timeless and thus timely. The pages of the Torah and Tanach reflect history that is millennia old which makes the lives of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King like yesterday, there is a timelessness and timeliness to the messages of their lives. It is no mistake that they are truly rooted in the text of our Bible. It adds to the immutability of their words. It is also testimony the significance of our voice.

I hope that the statue of Abraham Lincoln will be created and placed at the Tredegar Iron Works. I visited there two years ago and look forward to returning and seeing the power, passion and message of this image.

I hope that Chesterfield County will remember that the message is Martin Luther King is at the core of this country's soul, and much more important that a snow day.

I hope that we draw inspiration from our Torah and our heroes who never die.

Shabbat Shalom