Marcia K. Cypen, Esq.
Recipient of the 2017 Community Service Award
I am both honored and humbled to receive the Greater Miami Jewish Federation Community Service Award. It is a special honor to be the first recipient of this award who is not a member of the Judiciary, and to be in the company of the many esteemed members of the Judiciary who are prior recipients.
This award is especially meaningful to me because of the deep respect I have for Federation and its dedication to our community. Like Federation, my family has a long history of service to our community.
My Uncle Irving devoted his life to strengthening the Jewish Home for the Aged —now Miami Jewish Health. My father fulfilled the call of tikkun olam in a more private way, by helping his neighbors and caring for others who were in need. They were both an inspiration to me and a beacon of light that illuminated my path to community service.
Traveling with me on my journey has been my husband of 38 years, Steven Wisotsky, and our children, Bryan and Martine. I thank them for sharing me all of these years as I balanced career and family. I know it wasn’t always easy for them — or for me.
Although I come from a family of lawyers, I did not foresee a career in the law. When I began college in the late 1960s, the world was changing very quickly. The legal services movement was still in its infancy, and using the law as a tool for social justice was not well known. I thought the path to social change was through social work.
Once I made the connection with law, my friend Bruce Rogow guided me to Legal Services of Greater Miami. I started as a law clerk in the summer of 1974 and fell in love with the work and with my husband, who was a legal services staff attorney. It was exciting and gratifying as a young attorney to have the opportunity to use the law to protect important Due Process rights in Federal Court Class Actions — preventing cutbacks in Medicaid services and ensuring access to government benefits and health care. I knew early on that it would be my life’s work to help vulnerable members of our community who would otherwise have no one to enforce their rights.
In 1983, I seized the opportunity to serve in a leadership position as Executive Director. I have spent the last 34 years transforming legal services from a storefront operation into a strong and amazingly effective non-profit law firm with some of the best attorneys in Miami, the state of Florida and the nation. I am very proud of our staff and our management team, who have been my partners, and deeply grateful to the many Board and Campaign Committee volunteers, who have helped us on our journey.
Justice is a fundamental American value reflected in the first line of our Constitution and in the closing words of the Pledge of Allegiance. But words alone are not enough.
For 50 years, Legal Services of Greater Miami has given meaning to the words of the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance. There can be no justice without access to justice — and no access to justice without lawyers to represent people and protect their rights, regardless of their income.
Justice is also fundamental to Judaism. When I began to think about what I would say this evening, I found numerous references to justice in the Torah and in rabbinical teachings. I am sure that they are all familiar to you.
In Deuteronomy it says, “Justice, justice you shall pursue!” The scholars have said that “this implies more than merely respecting or following justice; we must actively pursue it.”
Moses insists that justice is an eternal religious obligation, at the very core of what it means to be a Jew. And Abraham’s Jewish legacy is the altruistic urge to bring righteousness and justice into the world.
The words “tikkun olam” connect us with the human responsibility for repairing what is wrong in the world, and have come to connote social action and the pursuit of social justice.
But as I reflected on what in my Jewish heritage inspired me to devote my career to pursuing justice, I returned to the memories of the Haggadah that our family used for the Seder. It was called the new Haggadah and was published in 1942 —the year my parents were married. As I leafed through the pages filled with matzah crumbs and wine stains, I found the words that inspired me as a child:
“Behold this cup of wine! Tonight the call rings out again, commanding us to champion the cause of all the oppressed and the downtrodden.
Let us here resolve to strive unceasingly for the day when poverty will be no more, when all mankind will enjoy freedom, justice and peace.
We shall not rest until the chains that enslave all men be broken. Pesach calls us to be free from the enslavement of poverty and inequality.
The Israelites learned what it meant to be slaves, and thus they were made ready for the role they were destined to play as the defenders of justice and freedom.
One meaning of the matzah is to ever inspire us to work for freedom, justice and peace for all peoples. Let us strive to bring about equality and justice for everyone.”
I believe that it is these words from the Haggadah that instilled in me a commitment to justice and tikkun olam — repairing the world.
I have been very fortunate to have the deeds of my family and the support of many members of our community to inspire and guide me on my 40-year journey. Legal services has also been extremely fortunate to have broad support from the legal and business community for the past 50 years.
Yet, I am well aware that there is still much work to be done to bring meaning to the promise of justice, especially in the new climate of threats to federal funding for the Legal Services Corporation. The work of Legal Services remains vital to our community, and community support for our work is more essential now than ever before.
Once again, I thank you for this honor, which I accept not only on my behalf, but also on behalf of all of my colleagues at Legal Services of Greater Miami who pursue justice every day.
