As a child of the United States and modern Israel, you have a unique national heritage. You may be dual citizens; you may have connections to two very different lands, with two different governments and two different groups of citizens. Yet, the heritage to which you belong from both of these places can be considered as singular and coherent.
Early Americans, including the original Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers, identified strongly with the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt as well as the principles of living freely with individual rights. Eventually, they battled for independence from their own "Pharaoh," King George III, and set up a system of governance inspired by their understanding of the "Hebrew Republic," based largely on insights from the Torah and the books of the Hebrew Prophets. At times, the Pilgrims even referred to the American colonies as "New Israel;" to this day, throughout the United States, especially on the eastern seaboard, the names of towns, cities, and counties are taken from the Hebrew Bible.
Descendants of persecuted sects of Christianity in England, the American Founders were adamant that their new nation would be tolerant of diverse religions. They proclaimed freedom of religion as well as a prohibition against the establishment of any state religion in the very same Constitutional Amendment that guaranteed free speech. The most religious of the early Americans believed that true religious virtue was possible only in free societies, in which citizens exercised that virtue in the choices they made. This included freedom of thought. Thomas Jefferson went so far as to state, "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
On the Fourth of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal. This never implied that all people should have equal wealth or abilities; it was meant to declare that all people are born with unalienable rights given, not by governments, but by God. These include freedom of thought, speech, worship, property, and self-defense - which were clarified in the Constitution that followed. To this day, there is growing interest among historians and Constitutional scholars about how the document was significantly influenced by the Talmud.
Another major principle of the American Constitution, and a key reason for the American Revolution itself, was the maximization of freedom by means of limitations, not upon citizens, but upon government. This, too, was inspired by principles of the Hebrew Republic, in which the very concept of a monarchy is viewed with concern, and even religious antagonism. Some European political philosophers of the seventeenth century invoked the Hebrew Republic to argue for the abolition of monarchy itself.
Despite historic abuses of power by Israel's kings, Hebrew kingdoms were not supposed to amass wealth, nor were they supposed to exist for the sake of providing for all the people's needs. They existed to defend against attack, to provide a national framework of governance, and to ensure that people were free and able to provide for themselves. In a system not unlike that of the states of the American union, the Hebrew tribes governed themselves in geographic localities.
The era of the American Revolution was also culmination of the movement of Christian Hebraism, when Protestant Christians sought to return to original Hebrew texts in trying to understand their roots. This didn't mean that, at the time, they loved Jews; it did reflect their growing respect for the origins of their concepts of justice, morality, and human dignity. The leaders of American institutions of higher learning, including Ezra Stiles of Yale, consulted and sometimes became close friends with rabbis in the area.
America has proven to be Israel's staunchest ally. But the relationship goes beyond geopolitical convenience and imperative. The values of individual rights and responsibilities, protected - but not dictated - by government is a legacy of Jewish thought. In this way, America arguably lays claim as embodying a legacy of Jewish governance. It's something Jews all over the world should be proud of. It's something Israelis should note, as an indication of how Israel's governance falls short when it tries, disastrously, to govern as a quasi-socialist welfare state, with its bloated, wasteful bureacracy, excessive taxation, and controlling over-reach into marketplaces and private lives.
The Fourth of July, 1776, coincided on the Hebrew calendar with 17 Tammuz 5536. The seventeenth of Tammuz annually marks the beginning of the three weeks leading up to the 9th of Av, period of mourning and somber reflection as Jews remember the destruction of the Temples and other tragic occurrences in Jewish history. I believe that this is no cosmic coincidence. It is said that in times of trouble, God provides solutions inside the problems themselves.
And so, sons and daughters of Israel and the United States, feel proud of your part in embodying this wonderful, shared legacy of the Hebrew Republic. May all of us, citizens of the modern State of Israel and citizens of that land across the ocean once called "New Israel," celebrate a happy Fourth of July.
