Our rabbis teach us that when we go up to heaven, we are asked a few critical questions. The first one is the most important, and it’s not how often you attended synagogue or church. It’s a question that captures the bottom line of our humanity – “were you honest in business?”

On April 3, 1968 Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his last speech the day before he was assassinated entitled “I Have Been to the Mountaintop,” in support of the striking sanitation workers at Mason Temple in Memphis. It was a speech for equality. He was asking for honesty in business.

MLK conveyed the message that certain issues are not the problem of the 1960’s, they are issues of human condition that have been in need of solving for centuries. The central message was helping the workers feel that they have the power, as long as they stick together. It was a call for liberation from any slavery and the need for eradicating it.

He uses Biblical allusion putting himself in the place of Moses who saw the promised land from the mountaintop.

Last Shabbat, we started the reading the Book of Exodus. We moved from Genesis – the book of creation, to Exodus – the book of redemption. The creation is for the purpose of redemption. Redemption that comes from being honest in business, without exploitation in any way. MLK calls to fight legally and force America to live up to its promise. He uses Biblical allusions and quotes Jesus and the prophet Amos with their call for social justice. Being practical, he calls to ban products of companies, like Coca-Cola, that discriminate in their hiring policies.

He says that one of the ways to keep slaves in slavery, just like Pharaoh did in Egypt, is to keep them fighting among themselves. And I would add – busy. So, the way to get out of Egypt is to be united. We are all God’s children and we want to enjoy life, not just survive it. MLK saw the promised land approaching in the near distance, similar to the lesson the rabbis teach us that more sufferings mean closer redemption.

Before choosing to begin in Egypt, MLK imagined a situation where he was having a conversation with the Almighty God, who gives him a choice in what era to live. He starts by leaving Egypt and traveling the wilderness. But even though it is magnificent, he doesn’t stop there. He wants to get to the promised land. He wants to continue to Greece and see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and their friends sitting around the Parthenon and discussing “eternal issues of reality” that sometime are very practical, as to say that the current situation in the twentieth century has deep historic roots but that there are also realities that are shared by every human being since the dawn of mankind.

So even though it is dark, the guiding stars are around the corner.  Something is happening now and God is working in this period of the twentieth century. “Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars”.

It is clear that he was conscious of the imminent danger he was in and that there was a good chance he wouldn’t live much longer. He reiterates the need for courage. He doesn’t know what will happen, but he knows the days ahead are not going to be easy. But it doesn’t matter because he’s been to the mountaintop, like Moses, and saw the promised land.

MLK concludes with the immortal words: “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. …I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Rabbi Gadi Capela