As we approach the High Holidays, we also are nearing the end of our annual cycle of Torah readings. We are in the final chapters of the book of Deuteronomy at the portion of Ki Tavo. Though much of this parashah is taken up with what is known as the tochecha, the warning of the dire consequences that will result from failure to hold up our end of the covenant entered at Sinai with the Almighty, the opening passages are more positive in nature. In particular the opening verses describe the annual ritual of the farmer bringing the first fruits of his field to the Temple as an offering of thanksgiving. In doing so, he is expected to recite several verses which recount the history of our people entering Egyptian slavery and subsequently being redeemed and brought to the land of Israel. The verses may sound familiar to us for they have been taken from this context and inserted into the Passover Haggadah where we read each year, “My father was a wandering Aramean” and we interpret the verses phrase by phrase from the rabbinic midrash.
In a piece from several years ago, the late former chief rabbi of Great Britain, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, suggests an interesting observation. In this piece, he compares the various monuments and memorials to great American leaders that one encounters in Washington, DC, with similar monuments and statues erected to British heroes and leaders in London. He mentions how one can visit the Lincoln Memorial and not only view the massive statue of Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, but also the full text of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and of his Second Inaugural Address. Traveling a short distance down the road one encounters the memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and there too one finds various tableaux depicting aspects of his career, as well as famous quotations from FDR’s years in the White House. Continuing around the ellipse, we come to the Jefferson Memorial and there too, surrounding a large statue of Thomas Jefferson by Rudulph Evans, we find important quotations from his pen including portions of the Declaration of Independence emphasizing those inalienable rights of all people.. I see that since my last visit to Washington, there is now a memorial to Dwight Eisenhower complete with statues and passages from Ike’s speeches as well.
Rabbi Sacks contrasts these American monuments to those found in London. He says, “You will find many memorials and statues of great people. But you will find no quotations. The base of the statue will tell you who it represents, when they lived, and the position they occupied or the work they did, but no narrative, no quotation, no memorable phrase or defining words.” Even at the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, none of his memorable quotations is displayed. According to Sacks, one society, that in the United States, tells a story with its monuments woven out of the great speeches of its greatest leaders. The other, England, does not tell a story. Rabbi Sacks attributes this to the difference between a covenant society and a tradition-based society.
Simply put, things are as they are in a tradition-based society because that is how they were. Quoting Roger Scruton, “England was not a nation or a creed or a language or a state, but a home. Things at home don’t need an explanation. They are there because they are there.”
As Sacks explains, “Covenant societies are different. They don’t worship tradition for tradition’s sake. They do not value the past because it’s old. They remember the past because it was events in the past that led to the collective determination that moved people to create the society in the first place…Covenant societies exist not because they have been there a long time, nor because of some act of conquest, nor for the sake of some economic or military advantage. They exist to honor a pledge, a moral bond, an ethical undertaking. That is why telling the story is essential to a covenant society. It reminds all citizens of why they are there.”
The Rabbi connects this idea to the recitation required on bringing the first fruits to the Jerusalem Temple . Every Jew was to know this story, this is the story of their origins and why they are where they are. It reaffirms the covenant made at Mount Sinai. Of course, we do not know how factual the narratives in the Bible actually are, but nonetheless they are our story for they embody our values. Time and again we are reminded of our origins as slaves, strangers, sojourners, in the land of Egypt and therefore of our obligation towards others in a similar condition now that we are free.
“A covenant,” says Sacks, “is more than a myth of origin… Unlike a myth, which merely claims to say what happened, a covenant always contains a specific set of undertakings that bind its citizens in the present and into the future.” Sacks cites a speech by Lyndon Johnson about the American covenant which I find resonates in our current political discourse as well. Johnson wrote, “They came here – the exile and the stranger…They made a covenant with the land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union. It was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind, and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.”
Covenant societies, according to Sacks, are not more righteous than others but “they see themselves as publicly accountable to certain moral standards that are part of the text and texture of their national identity. They are honoring the obligations imposed upon them by the founders.” As Johnson indicated, our very fate is tied up with the way we meet or fail to meet those obligations. Sacks notes, “Covenant societies are not ethnic nations bound by common racial origin. They make room for outsiders – immigrants, asylum seekers, resident aliens – who become part of the society by telling its story and making it their own.”
In every generation, the definition of “We the people” in our national constitution expands to include those who have joined us, adopted our national principles, and tell our story as their story. The outrageous lies and attacks on immigrants that have proliferated in recent years are so antithetical to everything we believe in as citizens of this great country. The massive statues and memorials to our leaders of the past are not intended to glorify these individuals but to celebrate the words they spoke or wrote that are carved into the walls of those temples and embody the values that we cherish.
Our Jewish tradition celebrates a covenant entered into millennia ago and we continue to flourish as a people by continuing to tell that story, recounting our past and making it our present and accepting its terms. Our American story may go back almost 250 years or, if we include the arrival at Plymouth Rock, some 400 years. We have not always kept faith with our founding covenant. We have learned over time to expand its reach beyond the purview of our founders. We have also suffered the consequences when we have departed from what Lincoln referred to as “the better angels of our nature.”
Historians and biographers have uncovered unpleasant truths about our greatest leaders. What a surprise to learn that they too were human! But as humans they also had the ability to rise above their mortal failures and inspire us with great teachings and lay down principles that have guided this covenanted land these many years. As election day draws nearer and as ballots have begun to be sent out around the country, we pray that we as a people may remain committed to the values that distinguish our nation from others around the world and that as we continue to tell our story, we will remain ever faithful to our founding principles.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Edward Friedman
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