Five Values to Unite America

By the time you read this column, the American presidential election may be over. We might not yet know who is President –— and I hope that process doesn’t drag on endlessly, as it did in 2000 with Bush versus Gore — but at least we’ll have put this ugly election behind us in a way, which I hope, will unite the nation.

Sounds crazy, right? Unite the nation?

Are you kidding? you might ask. We Americans hate each other. We’re divided on every level, from blue states to red states, from liberals to conservatives, from Only-Trumpers to Never-Trumpers, from those who think Joe Biden is a good soul to those who think he’s senile.

So it’s time to ask whether there is anything that can unite us, aside from the geography of all living in the United States.

Here are five values that I believe can unite us and which I hope, whoever is the president, will embrace.

1. A hatred of evil.

From the founding of our country, Americans have hated tyrants. We called George III a tyrant for taxing our tea. Even that was too much for us. Who the hell did he think he is, living across an ocean and thinking he could control us? So we rebelled, kicked his redcoats out of the British colonies, and created our own nation.

We call those Americans who fought Hitler “the greatest generation.” There were boys from Kansas and Nebraska who died and are buried in France and Luxembourg because they fought the Nazi tyranny, even though it did not directly affect them and their families.

That’s even why we fought — however ineffectively — in Vietnam. Because we hated the community tyranny and we were going to stop it.

It’s also why, ultimately, we removed Saddam Hussein from power. Yes, many of us thought he had weapons of mass destruction. And yes, the war was messy and most Americans today probably question it. But one reason the war enjoyed support at the time is because Americans hate tyrants, and Saddam Hussein killed countless civilians.

2. A love for communal service.

I have lived in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Israel. The one thing that distinguishes the United States is a passion for giving. We are the most charitable nation on earth. Yet, some of our youth are becoming self-centered and narcissistic because they are told that they should live to share their every moment on social media and work tirelessly in order to get into a great university and thereby obtain a well-paying job.

The one thing that distinguishes the United States is a passion for giving.

That’s great. But where is the service? I fervently hope that the next American administration will institute a year of national service for all High School graduates as a gap year. We should emulate Israel in this regard. Not all Israelis go to the army. Many do Sheirut Le’Umi. American youth should be asked to give a year of their lives to working in hospitals, homeless shelters, charities, libraries, and homes for the aged.

3. A love of family.

America revolves around beautiful national holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas,where we travel from every corner of the nation to be with our loved ones. But two days a year are not enough. It is time to institute a national weekly family dinner program for all Americans. I believe that the Jewish community should spearhead a national Friday night dinner campaign, where familiescan turn off the TVs, laptops, and cell phones for two hours and focus on each other. We should have our children — once the coronavirus has passed, God willing, invite two guests so that we inculcate within our offspring an appreciation for hospitality, making the American home into the tent of Abraham.

4. A love of learning.

America is the most prosperous nation on earth, and this is mostly due to American industriousness and innovation. But both of these traits are predicated on a mastery of information. We take learning and ideas and transform them into companies and industries. American science put a man on the moon, invented the internet, and helped map the human genome. But now, that flow of information is being corrupted by politics. We don’t even know what is true when we read the news. If it comes from CNN, it has a liberal slant. From Fox, a conservative one. Some universities are embracing a cancel culture, where “wrong” ideas are slowly muted. And we’re also not reading as much as we did. Add to that the terrible disruptions to schooling that havecome with the coronavirus, and what emerges is a true crisis in education. The solution is a renewed respect for learning. We need to promote public intellectuals again, making philosophers, historians, and scientists into national celebrities. We have to elevate the public discourse, making it one of ideas and not just opinions, intelligent insights and not just partisan political babble. Our national soul depends on it.

We have to elevate the public discourse, making it one of ideas and not just opinions, intelligent insights and not just partisan political babble.

5. A love for God and religion.

No country on earth is as religious as the United States. Even countries that purport to be religious almost always leverage God and religion for political purposes. And while this also happens in America, the average U.S. citizen has a natural spiritual disposition, where it’sexpected that every presidential speech end “God bless America” and where public holidays like Thanksgiving have a spiritual dimension of divine gratitude. No Western country,save America, has God even printed on our money. We have to nurture this innate American spiritual disposition by cultivating it and not fearing it. A moment of silence should be instituted as part of the curriculum of every American school, allowing students to reflect daily on a higher cause of their choosing. We need to affirm more spiritual values in American life that transcend the traditional religious debates on abortion, gay marriage, and contraception. There is more to American religion than the values that have come to define American spirituality. A new emphasis on charity, national prayer, synagogue and church attendance, or civic conferences for the agnostics will return us to a time when we didn’t only seek a vaccine for pandemics like the coronavirus but also turned our eyes toward divine grace and national redemption.

Americans are capable of coming together, even as we affirm our political and social differences. It will take more than just empty rhetoric about an increasingly elusive national unity. Rather, it demands national purpose through shared and cherished values.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the author of “Judaism for Everyone” and “Renewal: The Seven Central Values of the Jewish Faith.” Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @RabbiShmuley.