It is almost a half-century since Martin Luther King Jr., our black Moses, was murdered. Yet after all that time the vision he held up for us is not only relevant but essential for our troubled times. Special guest speaker Rabbi Sanford Ragins, will tell us why King’s teachings, in effect, his Torah, is still needed today. He will distill the essence of what King taught us and argue for the importance of taking his words to heart and turning them, at long last, into reality. This Shabbat marks the 50th Anniversary of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery.

Rabbi Ragins is Emeritus Senior Rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple in LA where he served as senior rabbi for thirty years. He was also a student rabbinic intern in Illinois and Alabama, experiencing first- hand the segregated South. He was ordained at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio and went on to graduate study at Brandeis University earning a Ph.D. in the History of Ideas. Known throughout his career for his human rights activism, he serves currently as an adjunct professor in the Religious Studies Department of Occidental College in Los Angeles.