Members of Union College’s Spiritual Life Team traveled almost two hours to Lexington Friday evening to attend Temple Adath Israel's MLK Shabbat. Campus Minister and Executive Director of Spiritual Life & Social Justice Initiatives, Rev. David Miller, organized the trip in response to conversations with junior Yaniv Zion.

"At some point last semester, I was feeling very lonely," Zion said. From Shoham, Israel, Zion is the only Jewish student on Union's small campus. He is also part of Miller's scholarship and mentoring program called Spiritual Life Leaders.

"I asked the Rev.," Zion continued, "'what can we do to help me feel closer to the religion?'"

Hearing Zion's need for connection with Judaism, Miller arranged for him to visit the Lexington synagogue and also opened the invitation to the rest of the Union community. "This was primarily a way to be of support to Yaniv," Miller said, "and to indicate that this is important."

Rabbi David Wirtschafter of Adath Israel said he was "thrilled" that Miller reached out and was incredibly excited that the group chose to come for his congregation's annual commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Wirtschafter explained that each year they invite a guest speaker "to address how we are progressing as a community and nation and can inch closer toward achieving Dr. King's dream." This year's guest speaker was Angela Evans. Recently elected Fayette County Attorney, Evans is Kentucky's first person of color to hold this office.

Evans focused on King's call for an economic bill of rights and quoted King's assertion that "depressed living standards are a structural part of the economy." She acknowledged that grappling with this less popular part of King's message is challenging but urged the audience to ask hard questions about who benefits from economic inequality.

Rev. Miller is intimately familiar with this more radical side of King's work. Early in his career, he developed his connection between faith and social justice when he served as pastor at Cynthiana Ebenezer United Methodist Church. He says the predominantly Black congregation taught him "how to see structures that before then had been invisible to [him], and to see the barriers that those structures put up to minoritized groups of all kinds." 

In addition to his role at Union, Rev. Miller has leadership roles in both Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and The Poor People's Campaign. The latter is a modern-day continuation of King's work, which focuses, in part, on economic inequality.

Miller's Spiritual Life Team emphasizes "radically accepting others" and serves students, faculty, and staff of any faith. Union defines spiritual development—one of its core values—as "challenging each other to discover, intellectually articulate, and embrace a life-affirming spiritual faith and/or philosophy of life." 

Spiritual Life Graduate Assistant Esther Simon Boram attended the Friday service and said it was a "great experience to learn different ways of worship." As a GA, she works with undergraduate leaders like Zion and "other students who are seeking spiritual connection." She said it is an opportunity to explore her own spiritual life and "learn different cultural beliefs, as well." 

Zion appreciated seeing "how people celebrate their Shabbat here as compared to Israel." In Israel, he said, unlike here, people wear white or black to services, and men and women sit on separate sides of the synagogue. He said many of the songs were familiar but that he is used to singing them differently. Still, "all the prayers were the same," he said.

Miller, Zion, and Boram were joined by another Spiritual Life Leader, junior Timothy Owsley, and faculty members Bruce Cory and Taiping Ye. Cory serves on the Spiritual Life Council, as well. Also joining the group was Union College Board of Trustees Chair Terri Cahill.

Cahill was pleased that she and others from the Union community were invited to attend the Shabbat and expand their experiences of worship and cultural traditions. "That's the value of a liberal arts education," she said, "to have people think more broadly."

Zion said he is very thankful for the opportunity to visit Temple Adath Israel and would like to come again, especially for Passover or other holidays. "It helps me to feel closer to the religion," he said.