Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

This past Shabbat morning, a group of us Kol Ami-nicks got up at the crack of dawn and headed to our state capital of Jefferson City. We celebrated Shabbat together and then, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel z”l said, we prayed with our feet. As part of a kickoff event for the Poor People’s Campaign, we held a rally in the rotunda of the Capitol.  

This was a kickoff to an effort of the next weeks and months to register 15 million poor people to vote. Poverty is the fourth-leading cause of death in our country, with 800 people dying each day due to poverty. Yet politicians never mention poverty nor discuss policies that impact the poor.  Economic disparity, racism, homelessness, ecological devastation that disproportionately impacts poor people — these are just some of the issues that get little coverage. Our media are also complicit in this unforgivable oversight.

Our Kol Ami contingent left the rally energized to do more. Stay tuned for opportunities to be part of the solution, to register voters and to give those new voters a voice in their future. As the Rev. Dr. Rodney Williams said at the rally, “We are not asking our political leaders; we are demanding.” We must do our part as Jews to do all we can to embrace the needs of the strangers in our midst. Right now, that means giving voice and dignity to the poor by registering the impoverished to vote.

As rabbi, I am grateful and overwhelmed by our participation in the rally. And you did not have to be in Jefferson City this past Shabbat to participate in the work to come. Let us say, for this election and all the elections to follow, that we made an impact for positive change.