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With Us or Against UsJuly 2003From the Desk of Rabbi FreelundThis Fourth of July is certainly a strange one for me. Hardly a week goes by that I don't stop and recognize just how fortunate I am to have been born an American citizen. To read the newspaper on a daily basis is to know how truly desperate life can be in many countries of the world. Poverty, oppression and disease are the ruling factors for most of humanity. Here in America it is clearly the opposite situation. We enjoy freedoms so expansive that most of our citizens are unaware of their scope. There is an untold wealth within our borders; more than enough to deal with any problem we choose to solve. Medicine borders upon the miraculous, relieving and curing conditions that even fifty years ago were thought to be utterly hopeless. Yet, despite this all, I am disquieted. In the last year our nation has displayed a belligerence that is almost unprecedented in our history. When I see an image of our nation's emblematic eagle, it seems that its head has turned away from the olive branches an towards the talon full of arrows. We now show a level of arrogance in our international posture that doesn't bode well for our future. We scorn our historic allies and pursue one-sided and aggressive action with little consideration of the ultimate consequences. And for all of this, we have not as a nation taken the difficult steps in changing the way we live that will be required to effectively fight terrorism. As long as anyone with a backpack can walk into a crowded mall or movie theater without scrutiny, we are not serious about the threat that faces us. We have instead turned our attention half a world away to a war of our choosing against a weak and broken enemy. Jewishly, this has not been easy to stomach. After September 11, there was an incredible period of national and international unity. Many of us looked into the mirror and understood on a deep level that whatever differences may keep us apart, our common humanity mattered more. There was a moment of national resolve that could have been seized upon to reach out across the many divisions of American society and correct the inequities of our nation. Perhaps our Jewish passion for tikkun olam, repairing the world might come to fruition within our borders and beyond them. For even a brief moment of messianic hope, I thought that we would pursue the solutions for our nation's problems as thoroughly as we had bombed the bunkers and mountain hideaways of Afghanistan. But it was not to be. Divisions have resurfaced in an impossibly short time, and the challenges we face a home have been swept aside. As I look to the next year, it is my hope that we again find our way to the olive branch, bakeish shalom v'rodfeihu, to seek peace and pursue it. To badly paraphrase the poet John Dunne, no nation is an island. We live in an ever more interconnected world from which no one can withdraw. Much like the Jews, Americans consider our country as a light to the nations. Amidst our fireworks, celebrations, and songs we would do well to consider the nation whose birth we commemorate. We are a nation of ideals: to sacrifice them in the pursuit of dominance is to sell our birthright for the fleeting comfort of a bowl of stew. |
