Tonight I watched my beloved Boston Pops play a shortened concert because of weather concerns in Boston.  It was fun to remember other years. One right after college where the temperatures were over 100 and I wound up “babysitting” my college roommate who developed heat exhaustion. One with Simon and Gabrielle having been to see the musical 1776 first. One when the Pops turned 100 and my parents came to visit. We had our picnic supper on a piece of cement. We never went back on the 4th after that. (But Simon and I got engaged shortly after that, on Bastille Day!). We have been to rehearsals on the 3rd. Usually with Doria and Harvey Alberg. A little less crowded and the same great music. Tonight, because of the weather, they combined the music with the fireworks. And even watching on Simon’s iPad it was magical.

4th of July: Parades, John Phillips Souza, Music, Fireworks, Flags, Red, White and Blue. There is a rhythm. A ritual. Independence.

That is what the 4th of July is about. Independence. Freedom.

I love the 4th of July. Whether I am marching in a parade–in Elgin, in East Grand Rapids, in Leland, in Evanston. Or sitting listening to Pops–at Ravinia, or Tanglewood or the Esplanade or East Grand Rapids. Or watching fireworks. Or eating the traditional 4th of July foods-blueberry-raspberry lemon loaf, olive burgers, hot dogs, corn, peas and peanuts, deviled eggs or dare I even say it, the annual “ham ball.”  I am proud to be an American. No one ever asked me where I would be for Rosh Hashanah. The question was always about being “home” for the the 4th. And then celebrating my parents’ birthdays on the 6th and the 7th.

I am proud to be an American. We have the best legal system. We have the best health care. We have wonderful educational opportunities. We have a system of government that includes checks and balances. We believe in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We have a bill of rights that includes freedom of speech, which I am exercising now, freedom of religion, freedom to assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom to bear arms.

I am proud to be an American, but what if some of those freedoms are in conflict. I am an American. But I am also an American Jew (or a Jewish American, that is a debate for another time).

I am proud to be an American but it seems to me that some of my values as a Jew, based on how I understand Torah and Jewish law, are in conflict with current policies and how I understand the intentions of our founding fathers.

THree things on this bright sunny Fourth of July morning have me especially concerned. Recently there was a Supreme Court ruling about how we pray. In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Supreme Court ruled that sectarian prayer is acceptable. This means that in Lowell, they could go back to reciting the Lord’s Prayer before every city council meeting. This means that in Elgin, where there are currently three clergy associations, Interfaith Thanksgiving may be less Interfaith and more Christian in nature. In neither case would it reflect the ethnic and religious diversity of the community.  This seems to me a step backward and not what George Washington was talking about in his famous letter to the Jewish community in Newport:

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by 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.”

Nancy Kaufman, whom I know personally from her years in Boston as head of the Jewish Relations Council and is now the head of National Council of Jewish Women, released this statement:

“NCJW is deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of permitting government officials to seek out clergy and others to offer sectarian prayers that primarily represent one religious view at the start of public meetings. The ruling in Town of Greece v. Galloway, in which we filed an amicus brief, is a step backward from previous decisions which permitted prayers in legislative bodies when the prayers were nonspecific and directed at legislators. In this case, the majority disregarded how ordinary citizens, particularly in the intimate setting of a town governing body, would be impacted by sectarian prayer when they sought to do business with the town. NCJW agrees with Justice Elena Kagan that, ‘When the citizens of this country approach their government, they do so only as Americans, not as members of one faith or another. And that means that even in a partly legislative body, they should not confront government-sponsored worship that divides them along religious lines.’ This ruling leaves us deeply concerned for the fate of the principle of separation of religion and state in the next court case that will surely come.”

Our founding documents prohibit the establishment of a state religion. Our nation is a rare combination of Christian, all kinds, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, people who believe in G-d, people who believe in many gods, people who think the very idea of G-d is anathema. This ruling by the Supreme Court challenges my very right pray in the manner that I prefer. It challenges my very right to participate in government as a Jew.

The Supreme Court made another ruling that challenges me as a Jew. Much has been written about the recent Hobby Lobby decision. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote a 35 page dissent. Her words were good enough, including:

• “Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”
• Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.”

Good but not enough to sway the court and I fear this ruling will have lasting implications for me as a woman, as an American and as a Jew. So I will add my voice. I worry for the sake of my daughter. My daughter has been on birth control since she was 12. Not as birth control although she should be entitled to that, but to regulate and help manage a severe chronic daily migraine. Do we want to deny access to birth control because it doesn’t fit with some people’s religious beliefs? I can’t imagine that she would choose to work for Hobby Lobby, but what about the people who do? What about people who work for Hobby Lobby, or others who will cite this ruling,  in a minimum wage job and cannot afford birth control without the support of health insurance? What about my freedom of religion? Judaism teaches that birth control and even abortion is permitted. That the life of a fetus is a potential life but not a life until halfway out the birth canal. This ruling violates my freedom of religion.

And finally, on this day of freedom. What about the children on our southern border? What right to freedom do they have? This is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. I cannot imagine having to send my daughter as a young child on a thousand mile hike or hitchhiking across desert to get to the Promised Land. But that is exactly the difficult choice parents are making in countries like Guatamela and El Salvador and Honduras and Mexico. Is this any different than hard choices  Jewish parents made in another generation in countries like Germany and Poland and Hungary and Russia. We have a congregant who spoke to a group of mostly Hispanic youth attended a summer camp at the Renz Center. She was describing her father’s journey from Germany to England to America during World War II. He was one of the lucky ones. He was saved. By the foresight of his parents who sent him away and by the mercy of those in England and his uncle in America. He survived. His parents did not. How do we now put children in “detention camps” in unspeakable conditions?

So on this birthday of America I pause. And after the parades, and the family reunion, and the backyard barbecue I will continue to work for freedom–freedom for all. So that as Washington said in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, “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 figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”