Reflections from Eric K. Ward, “You Are Here for a Reason”

You Are Here For a Reason | MLK Shabbat at Central Synagogue
Eric K. Ward

Beloved community, I know why you’re here: because you can feel the world trying to harden hearts, and you refuse to let it harden yours.

Good evening, Central Synagogue. Thank you for receiving me on MLK Shabbat, in this sanctuary and online. Central doesn’t exist for partisan theater. We exist for moral clarity. And tonight, we’re going to practice together.

So take a breath with me.Not a polite breath. A truth breath. Not to perform. To be present.

For more than thirty-five years my work has been to help communities confront hate violence, antisemitism, and racial division, and to keep multiracial democracy possible when fear is being used to divide us.

Some of you are here every week. Some of you came tonight because Dr. King’s call still lives in you. Some of you came because you needed a word you can carry into the week. Some of you came with pride, with worry, with grief, with all of it at once.

I come as a Black man formed by punk rock subculture and movement work. I’m a son of Los Angeles who learned early that when a system wants to break you, it does not begin with laws. It begins with a story. A story that says some people do not belong. A story that makes cruelty sound like common sense. A story that turns neighbors into suspects and human beings into categories of enemies.

Tonight we are going to choose a different story. One that is true and unfinished. A story of a multiracial, multifaith democracy struggling to be born.

And faith communities have a particular job in moments like this. Our job is not to be loud. Our job is to be clear. Our job is to keep people human when the world is trying to turn them into categories.

Because MLK Shabbat is not a tribute night.

It is a covenant night.

THE TORAH IS TALKING ABOUT US

This week’s Torah portion is Va’era.Moses stands before Pharaoh and says, let my people go.Pharaoh refuses. Again, and again.

And the Torah keeps giving us that line that should haunt a democracy: Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.

A hardened heart is not ignorance. A hardened heart is what happens when power gets used to being unmoved. When suffering becomes background noise. When cruelty becomes routine. When people say, “That is just how it is,” and then they adjust their morality to fit the moment.

Va’era is not only about what Pharaoh did. Va’era is a warning about what happens when a society gets trained to accept a hardened heart.

Here is what happens. The public becomes numb. The institutions become cautious. The neighbors become suspicious. The coalition becomes brittle. And the vulnerable become test cases. That is a plague.

And it spreads.

WHY YOU, WHY HERE, WHY NEW YORK

Now let me speak plainly to this sanctuary. New York is not only a city. New York is a signal.

What New York normalizes, the rest of the country learns to live with. What New York refuses, the country learns it can resist.

This is not a burden. It is a calling. This city has some of the most capable leaders in the nation. Many of you are in this room.

You know how to hold grief without turning it into hate. You know how to argue and still belong to each other. You know how to build a moral vocabulary bigger than “win” and “lose.”

And that is why what happens here matters beyond here. Because right now, the rest of the country needs New York to remember how to be a grown-up democracy. Not a perfect democracy. A mature one.

A TRUTH THAT FREES US

This week I joined a conversation with Philanthropy New York about “breaking the wedge” between anti-Blackness and antisemitism and the role civil society must play in the future of democracy. Here is the truth underneath that phrase. Anti-Blackness creates the baseline. It sets the floor of who can be treated as disposable. Who can be blamed for disorder. Whose pain can be doubted. Whose rights can be narrowed first.

Antisemitism creates the conspiracy. It creates the fog that says, “Do not look at policy and power and budgets and votes. Look for hidden puppet masters.”

One lie marks who can be punished. The other lie explains away who is responsible. Together they do something that should concern every rabbi, every pastor, every imam, every organizer, every parent. They break the public’s ability to tell the truth about power.

And when people cannot tell the truth about power, they start hunting each other. That is the wedge.

It does not only harm communities. It harms a democracy’s capacity to govern itself.

PHARAOH IS MOVING AROUND

Now let’s not speak in abstractions. We are watching hardened hearts walk through American life. We are watching intimidation dressed up as normal procedure. We are watching government treat schools, sidewalks, and neighborhoods like territory.We are watching private institutions learn to punish conscience faster than they punish violence.

This is not only policy disagreement. This is a moral condition. And each of us in the room knows this. When something starts happening to a society’s soul, it shows up first as permission.

Permission to dehumanize.

Permission to scapegoat.

Permission to say, “They do not belong.”

Permission to say, “Your grief does not count.”

Permission to say, “Your safety is negotiable.”

Pharaoh does not start with chains.

Pharaoh starts with permission.

WE MUST REFUSE THE TAINT OF ANTISEMITISM

Now, my Jewish family, hear me.

Antisemitism is real. It is not a metaphor. It is not an exaggeration. It is not “just online.” It is an old hatred that learns new clothing.

And I am not here to minimize it. Not for one second. I have spent decades watching antisemitism mutate, travel, and recruit in the United States. Even when many Jewish leaders ignored it. And I have also watched something else. I have watched the Jewish community, sometimes in legitimate fear,  sometimes in sheer exasperation, sometimes in righteous anger, choose strategies that do not actually produce safety.

So, I need to say “a thing” that is both loving and demanding: We do not get to confuse alarm with genuine leadership. We do not get to confuse “drawing the line” with communal safety. We do not get to confuse “winning an argument” with protecting a people.

Again. I feel it needs to be said again. Antisemitism must be confronted directly. But the way we confront it matters. Our intent never outweighs the outcome. Because if we confront antisemitism in a way that shatters the city’s ability to unite, we do not weaken hate. We strengthen it.

Hardened hearts love a fractured public. It allows them to govern a fractured public.

THE “SINGLE SYMBOL” TRAP

Let me name a pattern without naming a person.

In moments of fear, a city gets tempted to turn one public figure into the whole story. One face becomes the stand-in. One fight becomes the referendum. One controversy becomes the national headline.

And once that happens, everything becomes a loyalty test. And here is what gets lost. The patient work of building standards. The daily work of building relationships. The quiet work of building rules of engagement. The hard work of keeping the city governable.

We end up with a city that cannot breathe. We end up with a city that cannot speak across difference. We end up with a city that cannot model the thing the rest of the country desperately needs. A democracy that can argue without breaking.

Let me say it in the language of faith. Sometimes we mistake being right for being righteous. Sometimes we mistake intensity for truth. Sometimes we mistake public punishment for moral courage. But covenant is not built by humiliation. Covenant is built by accountability and relationship. Covenant is built by boundaries that are clear and compassion that is steady.

SPEAKING TO POWER

Now I want to speak to those who hold public power, without naming them. If you govern in this city, you have a job to do.

You must not treat Jewish fear as a nuisance. You must not treat antisemitism as a public relations problem. You must not let your coalition drift without moral boundaries. You must say, clearly and publicly, and repeatedly that antisemitism is wrong, dangerous, and unacceptable. You must be willing to show up in the rooms you do not control. You must be willing to listen without defensiveness. You must be willing to build trust as if America’s vision of an inclusive  democracy depends on it.

Because it does. 

And at the very same time, you must protect New Yorkers from being treated as permanent suspects. You must protect dissent without allowing bigotry. You must protect speech without allowing dehumanization. That is not a compromise. That is leadership. That is governance.

WHAT A FAITHFUL COMMUNITY DOES NEXT

So, what do we do?

I want to offer five disciplines that faith communities can practice starting now.

One. We tell the truth without contempt. We name antisemitism. We name anti-Black racism. We name Islamophobia. We name them in a single breath. We are the ones who choose to not trade one community’s dignity for another’s comfort.

Two. We insist on equal moral standards. No cheering violence. No romanticizing cruelty. No treating people as symbols. No making any Jew, any Muslim, any Palestinian, any Israeli, any Black person carry the weight of an entire conflict on their back.

Three. We build covenant, not cancellation. We call people in to responsibility. We correct harm. We do repair. We refuse public humiliation as a substitute for justice.

Four. We protect the vulnerable as a practice. Not as a statement. As tangible logistics. As visible presence. As courageous accompaniment. As civic training. As honored relationships that exist and have existed long before the crisis and horrors that seek to drive us into isolation and alienation.

Five. We model public maturity. Show the country that New York can hold tension and still belong to each other. Because the opposite of Pharaoh is not perfect agreement. The opposite of Pharaoh is a people who refuse to harden their hearts. 

Now. I want to close with a vow, out loud, so it does not remain a nice idea. 

No more rehearsal. Divide and conquer ends here. We will not abandon the vulnerable. 

Again. No more rehearsal. Divide and conquer ends here.

We will not abandon the vulnerable.

Rather.

May we be the kind of people Dr. King demanded. May we be the kind of people Torah requires. May we be the kind of people our children will thank.

Amen