If we Jews are to learn anything from misguided messianism, it must be that we need to cultivate a new sensitivity to our own extremism. It is a lesson that King, a student of the Bible, took to heart early on. We cannot tolerate the kind of depravity that preceded Rabin's death, no matter how firmly we may have opposed his policies or perspective. We cannot abide the kind of escalating vitriol that leads to a call for bloodshed. Ideologically or sociologically, murder is murder.
Words can hurt and even kill.
Any leader who resorts to hate as a vehicle of persuasion must be made to surrender his or her stewardship, to abdicate his or her position. And those who would respond to such stridencies, whether directly or indirectly, must be shown that they are outside the bounds of communal acceptability. King's approach, still embraced by mainstream black America as the road map to a just and equal society, is rooted in our own Jewish value system. As we celebrate his birth, let us look no further than our own tradition to appreciate King's message of moderation. And let us take his views to heart as we seek to heal wounds inflicted from within and without.