Shabbat Shalom and Happy 4th of July. I teach this morning in honor of my mother, whose birthday was July 6th. In our family, the question was never where will you be for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. No, the question was where will you be for the 4th of July and Thanksgiving—the two most American holidays. And also somehow profoundly Jewish as well. I think that was the point. These holidays were a measure of how American we were.
Today is also the 17th of Tammuz. Ordinarily a fast day, it is the day the walls in Jerusalem were breached by the Romans, three weeks ahead of the observance of Tisha B’Av, when the Second Temple was destroyed. Shabbat suspends that mourning. And if you are so inclined you can fast tomorrow. This year some rabbis are fasting for the churches that have been burned. Since I cannot fast, I will be contributing the amount of money I would have spent on food to T’ruah, Rabbis for Human Rights. Because this year, when the 4th of July and the 17th of Tammuz cross, just like they did in 1776, I have to pause and wonder at the connections.
Today we have three seemingly simple texts:
- “How good are your tents, O Jacob. Your dwelling places O Israel?” These words are the words we sing every morning service when we first enter the sanctuary. But these are the words of a non-Jewish prophet. Hired by the King of the Moabites, Balak, every time Balaam opened his mouth to curse the Israelites, G-d filled his mouth with blessing. These are the very words we use to open our services. Think about that, a non-Jewish prophet trying to curse the Israelites, uttering words of blessing and we still use them. Every day. What does that say about the role of the non-Jew? What does it say about blessings?
- The second text is my mother’s favorite verse of all time. So much so that when the Dead Sea Scrolls came to Grand Rapids for the first time out of Israel, she calligrpahed the verse. It seems so simple. “What does the Lord require of you? Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your G-d.” That’s it. That’s all we have to do. But as our discussion indicated, can justice and mercy co-exist? Does mercy have any role in our court system? I think the answer to Micah is YES! And that is precisely what makes Judaism radical. Yes, we have to do justly, act righteously. And yes, we have to, at the same time love mercy. It is a both/and. It isn’t easy. It isn’t simple. It is what we are called to do. And it is these very words that we, as Jews are still obligated to follow. And like Micah, speak these very words to power. That is part of our mission on this, America’s Independence Day.
Of course there are other possible translations. Ahavat Chesed. Love lovingkindness? Chesed is almost impossible to translate. My mother’s friend, Dr. Nelson Glueck, wrote his PhD thesis on this topic. He went on to be president of Hebrew Union College. I tried to tackle it in my rabbinic thesis, concluding with Glueck that it is not possible to translate and yet, we understand the sense.
And since this is the 17th of Tammuz, as we begin again to contemplate the ruin of Jerusalem, we are taught:
“Rabbi Joshua said: ‘Woe to us, for this house that lies in ruins, the place where atonement was made for the sins of Israel!’ But Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai replied, ‘My son, be not grieved, for we have another means of atonement which is as effective, and that is, the practice of loving-kindness, as it is stated, ‘For I desire loving kindness and not sacrifice’ (Hosea 6:6)” Babylonian Talmud, Avot de Rabbi Nathan 20a
Simple? No? Do justice. Establish courts. Love mercy. Be nice to everyone. Do the right thing. And walk humbly with G-d. It is not the 613 commandments. It is not animal sacrifice. It is deeds of loving kindness. It is loving mercy and doing justice. Both, in the name of G-d.
3. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Again, simple, no? But people have argued over this text much like a Biblical text. All men? Only men? All people? What happiness? Whose happiness? What’s included? And that is the point on this Shabbat Independence. To pause to reflect. To look at our foundational texts.
Later I am going to do something to help us celebrate the 4th of July and Shabbat. I am going to sing part of the Declaration of Independence in Haftarah trope. There was a lot of discussion about this online this week in one of the groups I participate in. Does this make the Declaration of Independence a “holy” text? Divine? An idol? Some argued that it is prophetic. Does the trop marks make us hear it better. Trop is, after all, a system of punctuation. Does it make it uniquely Jewish? Only Jewish?
And maybe that is the point. We Jews in America have participated in life almost since America’s inception. The earliest congregations were founded in the 1600s. I can imagine Jews in their synagogues praying and celebrating the morning the Declaration of Independence was pronounced, on July 4th which just like this year was a Saturday and the 17th of Tammuz. Later, there were Jews like Hayyim Solomon and Rebecca Gratz that were at the vanguard of funding the Revolutionary War.
We have Washington’s address to Touro Synagogue. And we have the letter that he wrote to Touro which became the basis of the Bill of Rights. He was very clear and the writing is so eloquent:
“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
We have the prayer that the congregation in Richmond, VA wrote for Washington in 1790. I love that it is an acrostic that spells out Washington’s name. I can’t wait to see it some day in person at the Jewish Museum in Philadelphia, a new museum right near the Liberty Bell, which declare, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof.” (Lev. 25:10) The sentiments of the prayer are very similar to our “Prayer for the Country” and we will use it as such later. These are foundational texts too.
The Hagaddah that we use at home, a compilation of many begins talking about living in two communities. The Jewish community and the American community.
“We share common histories— both the Exodus and the American experience; we share common dreams of equality, justice, and peace. …And so we join together to send out a message of freedom which we hope will ring through the hills of our land and across the seas.
It spells out what some of those freedoms are that we celebrate:
freedom from bondage and freedom from oppression,
freedom from hunger and freedom from want,
freedom from hatred and freedom from fear,
freedom to think and freedom to speak,
freedom to teach and freedom to learn,
freedom to love and freedom to share,
freedom to hope and freedom to rejoice,
It would be my hope that we continue to uphold the dream, rededicate ourselves to this dream. To be a light to the nations. To speak truth to power. To do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with G-d. That our words, like Balam’s are heard as words of blessing. Then as Washington, quoting Isaiah and Micah, will be right. This is a nation where “every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.” Then we will be able to say, “How goodly are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel.” Here. In this country. Today. Amen.