Andrew Tarsy of Boston (Jewish)

Inspired by the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project of the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, the Globe invited local clergy to e-mail the texts of inauguration-related sermons and prayers for posting here on the Articles of Faith religion blog. You can find all of the submissions by clicking on the Inauguration Sermons category in the blog’s right rail.

A guest sermon, titled "Dr. King s Legacy and what it means to be an Upstander,'' by Andrew Tarsy, of Facing History and Ourselves, delivered at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in Boston:

"Dr. King would have turned 80 yesterday - and the day he was murdered in April of 1968 he was only 39 years old. In his too-short life, Dr. King moved a proud nation a giant step closer to its lofty ideals. He is remembered well for his vision, and for the action he inspired.

For Dr. King, the movement was defined by enrolling people from all walks of life in non-violent struggle; and tackling head-on the fundamental moral questions of his time: a national system built on white supremacy, and the deprivation of equal rights, economic opportunity and human dignity. But he professed the belief that the movement was also about more. It was about building the 'beloved community,' a world reflected in his famous words, 'We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.' Among our many challenges is to define our beloved community to include people like ourselves and those who are very different; those we understand and those we do not. People we see every day and those who may be suffering anonymously behind a closed door, or invisible to society. Our beloved community must include men and women, children and seniors, Israelis and Palestinians, and must include Jews and Christians and Muslims and Hindus, and people whose faith traditions we have never even heard of, and families where there are multiple faith traditions living under the same roof. It must include people who are straight and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered. It is our obligation as to imagine, as Dr. King did, an ideal world of universal dignity, and to work toward that ideal on the days when it comes easily and the days when it does not.

On Monday, the nation celebrates a national holiday to honor Dr. King. And on Tuesday, we will witness the historic inauguration of the first African American President of the United States, Barack Obama.

We reach these special occasions as a nation that enjoys unprecedented freedom; But also as a nation confronting danger. Challenging times create economic and social pressures that can undermine our most basic values. It will be tempting to listen to our new President on Tuesday and hear Dr. King, Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Roosevelt; or even to hear Moses. Great leaders play critical roles in times like these. But these times require that each of us focus on the importance of our own voices and our own choices. We must choose action over indifference, and participation over the passive. Not as easy as it sounds, we say. We may understand President Lincoln's famous call to 'summon the better angels of our nature' but we may not know where to find those angels or how to put them to work. In the spirit of Dr. King's legacy, the question I want to address tonight is 'where can each of us find the resolve to get personally involved, to make a difference in the urgent problems of our time?'

Part of the answer for each of us surely lies in our personal experiences. It is no secret that my perspective has been powerfully shaped by my recent experience in the controversy here in Boston over the Armenian genocide and the power of words. The controversy spawned destruction, disruption, and division. I have learned to be comfortable saying that I took a stand based on what I believed was right. And I am aware that my actions, though certainly not mine alone, made a difference. It has not been a simple time, and I have learned that even when the whole community stands with you it is possible to feel totally alone. Everything falls away when I am in conversation with people who have approached me to share the stories of their families, some who were impacted by the genocide itself. For all the causes you may seek out in your life, it may well be the ones that find you first that have the most meaning. I suppose in those cases, it's all about how we respond.

Many of us were caught off guard by the whole issue and wondered why the use of the word genocide mattered so much. The designation carried by the word genocide indicates an intentional destruction of a people or culture. The word, and then the international law based on it were both created in the mid 1940's by a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin who lost his entire family in the Holocaust. Since that time the term genocide has taken on complex layers of meaning. It has given victim and survivor communities validation of their tragedy; it has focused the international community on a new definition of justice; and it has given each of us as individuals a powerful tool to work with in prevention.

The world knew what was happening to the Armenians at the time the genocide took place. In 1915 alone there were 145 articles in the New York Times about it. The Ottomon Young Turks regime intentionally and systematically wiped out more than a million of its own citizens, shattered the Armenian culture and scattered the survivors into diaspora, all under the cover of war. Years of effort by the Turkish government and the willingness of its allies to play along produced doubt and confusion about these events only after the fact.

In the context of observing the King holiday and reflecting on the significance of our own choices, it is important to recognize that no system of racial oppression, no genocide exists or occurs simply as a matter of government policy. Neither can happen without the complicity of citizens, intellectuals, cultural icons, clergy, and leaders of great institutions like universities. Neither can happen without the complicity of corporate bosses, labor leaders, and political leaders.

Conversely, the only thing that has ever prevented or interrupted genocide or mass violence, or brought safety or justice to a victim caught in the middle is the courage of other individuals. Many of us have been exposed to the philosophy perhaps best captured by the great Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, who wrote, 'The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.' Dr. King famously made such a call by challenging his own congregation to be 'drum majors for justice.' At Facing History and Ourselves, we like to call this 'choosing to participate.' Harvard Professor and author Samantha Power provides another term for those who refuse to be bystanders when there is an urgent need. She calls them 'upstanders.'

As you have heard, over the last several weeks students from Temple Israel's Monday Night School and Beacon Academy have been studying together this idea of what it means to be an 'upstander'. The students have looked in depth at the historical case study of the integration of Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas, examining the individual choices made by the nine African American teenagers who integrated the school, and the choices made by their families as well as the other students, the teachers, and the police and other government officials. Our students are also sharing their own stories, and reflecting on the meaning of being an upstander in their own world, in their own time. One teacher described this method as studying history, 'with a text in one hand and a mirror in the other.' We can learn so much from them if we listen.

What is it that helps us make the choice to 'choose to participate?' and to 'exercise the upstander option?'

A man named Albie Sachs is credited with a giant role in fighting the apartheid system in South Africa. He lost an arm and an eye in a violent attack by those who tried to stop him. His response was to play a leadership role in building a post-Apartheid government that would respect human rights and human dignity. Now serving as a Justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Sachs is known to deflect praise, saying, 'A hero is a sandwich you can buy in New York City.'

While we are on safe ground insisting that Sachs, King and so many others be our heroes, we risk de-motivating ourselves when we don t look at their acts of courage as human choices made by human beings human beings who as strange as it seems, have much in common with ourselves.

This week's Torah portion, the scripture that will be read in Jewish communities worldwide tomorrow is in part about Moses. But it is not the story of Moses as hero or leader. It tells of baby Moses being placed into the river in a basket by his mother in order to save him from the Pharoah's decree that every Israelite male first-born child be killed. The hero of this story is of course not Moses, but his sister, Miriam, who hatched a plan that would allow him to live. She patiently guarded the basket, hidden behind the reeds, until Moses was safely taken ashore by Pharaoh s daughter. There is no suggestion in the text that Miriam was destined to be a great leader or champion. Her presentation as the consummate, loving sister has overshadowed our memory of her as a courageous and resourceful upstander. How did she do it?

Based on a study of rescuers during the Holocaust, psychology Professor Ervin Staub writes, 'Goodness, like evil, often begins in small steps. Heroes evolve; they aren't born. Very often the rescuers make only a small commitment at the start to hide someone for a day or two. But once they had taken that step, they began to see themselves differently, as someone who helps. What starts as a mere willingness becomes intense involvement.'

Few of us would dare to assert that we would have had the courage to be rescuers. But perhaps we can still find ourselves in Professor Staub's research. Perhaps we can see ourselves taking that first step, and imagine the very step itself turning us into something more of ourselves. Perhaps we can alter our own expectations, find out what we are made of, just by making that first move.

Melba Petillo Beals was one of the Little Rock Nine and is the author of a powerful memoir entitled Warriors Don't Cry. The only cause she was really interested in when she was 15 years old was to be a regular teenage girl who could study hard, enjoy time with her friends and her crushes, and live a pretty normal life. And then she got the chance to be one of the students to integrate Central High School after the NAACP won its famous Supreme Court case in 1954. Melba says part of her desire to volunteer came from a surge of pride she felt watching Rosa Parks and the people of Montgomery desegregate their city buses through direct action. She thought the integration of the school might lead soonafter to other doors opening like the right to attend special events at the segregated auditorium downtown or sit on the first floor of the movie theater.

Beals writes in her memoir about how difficult that first year at Central High School was. Danger and violence lurked everywhere. Many students wanted to drive the 'integrators' out, and many adults condoned or even organized and promoted their abusive tactics. Once Beals found out that an entire organization of White mothers was behind the nointegration cause, she had a feeling they were doomed to fail. What made her persevere?

Certain things are clear: Melba knew what she wanted, which was above all to get the best education she could, and it was to be found only at Little Rock Central High School. She had the support of her family. And Beals describes how the nine pioneers drew great strength from each other and from knowing that many people of diverse backgrounds were making great sacrifices and taking great risks so that they could succeed and segregation everywhere could come to an end.

What can we learn from these stories to speed us on our personal journeys toward action? The answer lies not in a quick fix like signing a petition or joining a committee-though these actions are part of it. I am persuaded that it is a matter of a deeper, lifelong, personal confrontation with ourselves.

First and foremost, plain and simple, being an upstander means first letting the world affect you. For all the nuance and reason that surrounds us, we cannot afford to lose our simple sense of outrage. It is simply unacceptable that children go to bed hungry in America or anywhere else. It has to be outrageous that on a softball field on the other side of the hospital buildings over there a child was shot and killed last summer. Before we get lost in statistics and all the complexity of the issues, we need to stop and see that victim as a human being with feelings and goals and aspirations of his own, and a family in unbearable pain that will never go away. Rabbi Friedman recently answered the question about why he was leading the Temple into an effort to respond to the economic crisis by simply saying in essence, 'Because there have to be people in our community who will be in great need.'

Second, we have to see that our choices matter. Essentially, I read Professor Staub to say that becoming an 'upstander' like anything else important, takes practice. We need to see the choices we make as the building blocks of our own stories, and our own identities as well as the building blocks of future history. It may be easier for us to understand the big choices if we have made a habit of conscious engagement with the little ones. In Warriors Don't Cry, Beals reports on a very small step taken by some white classmates who we may be tempted to judge harshly for not risking more. Melba writes: 'After lunch as I headed for gym class, I had two more reasons to hope integration would work. Amid the hecklers taunting me, two girls had smiled and waved a welcome.'

The third element I offer, as I try to construct one understanding of what it may mean to be an upstander, is a cautionary note: The criteria for getting involved cannot include a guarantee of success on our timetable. We are rising to our duty to be a link in a chain, and as Dr. King would frequently say, 'The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.' A Jewish perspective comes from what we call the Pirkei Avot -- the Teachings of our Fathers. The lesson is: Lo aleicha hamlacha ligmor ve lo ata ben chorin lehibatel mimena. Or 'You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.' (Pirkei Avot 2:21)

Fourth, don't be too reasonable. Don't be too patient. I am reminded of last year's Hearings on the Congressional Resolution to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. Backers of the resolution were told it was the right principle but not the right time. An outraged Congressman pointed to the three or four elderly and frail Armenian survivors seated in front of the dais in wheelchairs and declared, 'You tell these ladies when a good time would be!'

On this subject of impatience for justice, all roads lead to Dr. King's 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 'human progress does not roll in on wheels of inevitability.' King wrote to the clergy of Birmingham who had publicly chastised him and others for moving too fast in their direct action campaigns. King said so many things in the Letter from a Birmingham Jail that must be read and understood. Among them is a tribute of all tributes to the upstanders of his era. He wrote to the clergy who criticized the movement:

'I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face Jeering, and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: 'My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.' They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.'

A fifth and final thought on this business of becoming an upstander: Embrace the paradox that your individual choices matter but that at the same time you can't do it all yourself. If process is product, then it follows the ideal way to create the beloved community Dr. King envisioned is to act as a beloved community. We are stronger when we stand together with our diverse neighbors around shared values, taking the heat for our choices and making sure that those with the power to make change are feeling the heat from theirs.

King's vision of beloved community depends heavily on our ability to cultivate, from our collective efforts, an 'upstander' community. As we renew our democracy with the inauguration of President Barack Obama, I pray that our President's vision is matched by his strength, and that our expectations are matched by a great national wave of compassion, resolve, and choosing to participate.

As King himself said, 'Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.'

May we have the courage to climb the staircases we choose and the staircases that choose us, together, in peace."