The True Celebration of Our Independence

For some, this year’s Independence Day celebration will be muted because of recent Supreme Court decisions that raise grave concerns about our individual liberties and religious freedoms.

On this 246th anniversary of the Declaration of our Independence from the rule of tyranny, we acknowledge that, since the founding of our nation, we have yet to fully realize the vision of a land where the unalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” might be experienced equally by all citizens.

We know that women, people of color, indigenous persons, religious minorities (including Jews), and members of the LGBTQ+ community—among others—were only granted these rights after years of struggle, and even then, those rights were not always granted in full measure. Many fear that some of these hard-earned rights might soon be taken away just as abortion access has in many states, which is, as Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg notes in a recent article, a “matter of religious freedom.”

But on this day, let us reflect on a moment just after our nation’s founding. In August of 1790, George Washington, who had been elected the first president of the United States the previous year, traveled to Newport, R.I. along with his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. In anticipation of his visit, Moses Seixas—a leader of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport—sent Washington a letter in which he petitioned the president for full rights for the Jewish community.

At that time, Jews in Rhode Island—though citizens—could neither vote nor hold office. In his letter, Seixas described the United States government as one “which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance but generously affording to all liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever nation, tongue or language equal parts of the great governmental machine.”

In his response, President Washington borrowed some of the language of Sexias’s letter: “The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving 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.”

Today, we celebrate the promise of that moment. We honor the courage of those who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for that vision, for that idea.

Rather than allowing these recent decisions to dampen our celebration, let us be inspired by our founding generation who saw the world that was and dreamed of a world that might yet be.

Rather than allowing these recent decisions to dampen our celebration, let us be inspired by our founding generation who saw the world that was and dreamed of a world that might yet be. Instead of despairing at this moment, let us move forward with determination and hope, animated by a vision of an America that will someday, in part through our own efforts, fulfill its promise to become a place where bigotry is given no sanction, persecution no assistance, and where all will be afforded the dignity of liberty of conscience and control of their own bodies.

Let us be inspired by the words of Senator Carl Schurz (1829-1906) who also served our nation as Secretary of the Interior. The German-born Schurz—who immigrated to America as a young man and who never stopped believing in its promise—famously said in response to those who declared their patriotism by claiming, “Our country, right or wrong!”: “Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.”

Let us endeavor to build an America worthy of President Washington’s description in his letter to the Jewish community of Newport. There he references a verse from the prophet Micah that imagines a time when our people, whom Washington calls “the Children of the Stock of Abraham,” along with all of our fellow Americans, will “continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while everyone shall sit under [their] own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make [them] afraid.”

On this Independence Day, let’s celebrate that ideal, and rededicate ourselves to reaching it. As another visionary would have it: “If we will it, it is no dream.”

Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback is the Senior Rabbi of Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles, California.