Capturing the Jewish meaning of Independence in the United States and Israel

Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776

"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty...

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. -- I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. -- Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not"

The designation in modern Hebrew for The United States is “Artzot haBrit” that literally means “The Lands of the Covenant.”

The Torah and the Constitution were elevated by Jews and Americans respectively as the final recourse and supreme arbiter of political disputes and moral conflicts. The “LAW” rather than any President or King was acknowledged as the source of power in the state.

The Oath of Office in US Constitution

Fulfilling a similar covenant, the oath of office requires the President to swear on the Bible “To Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Constitution of the United States - so help me God!

Who is fit to rule?

Mishneh Torah, Repentance 2:5

The penitent who confesses publicly is praiseworthy, and it is commendable for him to let the public know his iniquities, and to reveal the sins between himself and his neighbor to others, saying to them: "Truly, I have sinned against that man, and I have wronged him thus and such, but, behold me this day, I repent and am remorseful". But he, who is arrogant and reveals not but covers up his sins, is not a wholehearted penitent, of whom it is said: "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper" (Prov. 28.13).

Declaration of Independence (Benjamin Franklin)

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

Declaration of Independence

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

The Supreme Court and the Sanhedrin

This insistence on the written law parallels American regard for the Constitution as the document by which the highest Judicial authority -- the Supreme Court -- was given the right to interpret it in order to decide what is the law of the land and what is forbidden to be rejected no matter how many legislators voice their approval. Until the destruction of The Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D., The Great Sanhedrin, a type of Jewish Supreme Court met in an assembly of 71 members. They had both judicial and legislative functions and claimed powers to try the king, extend the boundaries of the Temple and Jerusalem, and settle all questions of law. In some cases, it was only necessary for a 23-member panel (functioning as a Lesser Sanhedrin) to convene. In general, the full panel of 71 judges was only convened on matters of national significance (e.g., a declaration of war) or in the event that the 23-member panel could not reach a conclusive verdict.

https://www.newenglishreview.org/Norman_Berdichevsky/The_Torah_And_The_Constitution/

From the earliest days of the New England Puritan colonies, the following elements were elevated:
* a great respect for the Ten Commandments and the Hebrew Language;

* an emphasis on education and literacy;

* a commitment to abide by mutually agreed upon written covenants.

Hundreds of Biblical expressions and Hebrew words became a part of the English language and American culture as if they had originated in it and were subsequently borrowed for successful novels, films, political slogans, popular mottoes embracing folk wisdom, allegories, proverbs, and even stamped on the Liberty Bell --

(Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof -- Leviticus 25:10)

Yale University

1777 Hebrew became a required course in the freshman curriculum

Commencement speeches were given in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic.

There is perhaps no more central symbol of the university’s early devotion to Hebrew learning than its official seal, at the heart of which are the words Hebrew words “Urim” and “Thummim,” (“light and perfection”), which are given equal prominence with the university’s Latin translation, “Lux et Veritas” (“light and truth”).

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/how-hebrew-came-to-yale

Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe. The New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived and established "as plantations of religion." Some settlers who arrived in these areas came for secular motives--"to catch fish" as one New Englander put it--but the great majority left Europe to worship God in the way they believed to be correct. They enthusiastically supported the efforts of their leaders to create "a city on a hill" or a "holy experiment," whose success would prove that God's plan for his churches could be successfully realized in the American wilderness. Even colonies like Virginia, which were planned as commercial ventures, were led by entrepreneurs who considered themselves "militant Protestants" and who worked diligently to promote the prosperity of the church.

Theodore Herzl: The Father of Zionism

Herzl grew to believe that antisemitism could not be defeated or cured, only avoided, and that the only way to avoid it was the establishment of a Jewish state. In June 1895, he wrote in his diary: "In Paris, as I have said, I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-semitism ... Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-semitism."

Beginning in late 1895, Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), which was published February 1896 to immediate acclaim and controversy. The book argued that the Jewish people should leave Europe for Palestine, their historic homeland. The Jews possessed a nationality; all they were missing was a nation and a state of their own.

Conclusion of Der Judenstaat

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"Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again. Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity."

History of the Modern State of Israel

Modern Israel has its origins in the Zionism movement, established in the late 19th century by Jews in the Russian Empire who called for the establishment of a territorial Jewish state after enduring persecution. In 1896, Jewish-Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl published an influential political pamphlet called The Jewish State, which argued that the establishment of a Jewish state was the only way of protecting Jews from anti-Semitism. Herzl became the leader of Zionism, convening the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897. Ottoman-controlled Palestine, the original home of the Jews, was chosen as the most desirable location for a Jewish state, and Herzl unsuccessfully petitioned the Ottoman government for a charter.

After the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, growing numbers of Eastern European and Russian Jews began to immigrate to Palestine, joining the few thousand Jews who had arrived earlier. The Jewish settlers insisted on the use of Hebrew as their spoken language. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Britain took over Palestine. In 1917, Britain issued the “Balfour Declaration,” which declared its intent to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Although protested by the Arab states, the Balfour Declaration was included in the British mandate over Palestine, which was authorized by the League of Nations in 1922. Because of Arab opposition to the establishment of any Jewish state in Palestine, British rule continued throughout the 1920s and ’30s.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/state-of-israel-proclaimed

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan dividing the land of Palestine then controlled by the British into a Jewish and Arab state. Shortly after this vote, the British government decided that British rule would end on midnight May 14th, 1948. The Jews would have the right to declare a state at 12am, May 15th, 1948 which falls out on the 6th of Iyyar on the Jewish calendar.

Fast forward a few months to the 5th of Iyyar, Friday May 14th, 1948. Debate raged in the Jewish council convened by David Ben Gurion about the new Jewish state’s Declaration of Independence. Religious members of this Jewish assembly insisted that this declaration mention the God of Israel while many secular Zionists felt any mention of God would be blasphemy. One political party even insisted the declaration be signed at midnight when the British mandate officially expired. The religious parties asserted that such a situation would mean that the state would be “born in sin” and threatened to leave the convention as the Sabbath approached. A compromise satisfying both the secular majority and the religious delegates seemed impossible.

David Ben Gurion realized that to succeed any declaration of Jewish statehood required all the stakeholders to agree. He proposed that rather than refer to God, Israel’s declaration would end with a mention of placing trust in Zur Yisrael, The Rock of Israel, a biblical term used as a synonym for God but one that could be interpreted differently by members of the assembly possessing a more secular outlook

Martin Buber, Judaism and the Jews, 1909

The People are for us a community of people who were, are and will be -- a community of the dead, the living and the yet unborn -- who, together constitute a unity. It is this unity that to young people is the foundation of their identity, this identity which is fitted as a link into the great chain. Whatever all the people in this chain have created and will create, they conceive to be the work of their own particular being. Whatever they have experienced and will experience the individual conceives to be his or her own destiny. The past of the People is her or his personal memory, the future of the People his or her personal task. The way of the People is the basis of our understanding of ourself. When out of our deepest self-knowledge we have thus affirmed ourselves, when we have said "yes" to ourselves and to our whole Jewish existence, then our feelings will no longer be the feelings of individuals. Every one of us will feel that we are the people, for we will feel the People within ourselves.

Rav Joseph Soloveitchik, "Al Ha-T'shuva"

The Jew who believes in Knesset Israel (Jewish community) is the Jew who lives with Knesset Israel where she may be and is prepared to die for her, who hurts with her pain and rejoices in her joy, who fights her wars, suffers in her defeats, and celebrates her victories. The Jew who believes in Knesset Israel is the Jew who joins himself as an indestructible link not only to the Jewish people of this generation but to Knesset Israel of all generations. How? Through Torah, which is and creates the continuity of all the generations of Israel for all time.

Rav Joseph Soloveitchik, "Community"

The community in Judaism is not a functional-utilitarian, but an ontological one. The community is not just an assembly of people who work together for their mutual benefit, but a metaphysical entity, an individuality: I might say, a living whole. In particular, Judaism has stressed the wholeness and the unity of Knesset Israel, the Jewish community. The latter is not a conglomerate. It is an autonomous entity, endowed with a life of its own. We, for instance, lay claim to Eretz Israel. God granted the land to us as a gift. To whom did He pledge the land? Neither to an individual, nor to a partnership consisting of millions of people. He gave it to the Knesset Israel, to the community as an independent unity, as a distinct juridic metaphysical person. He did not promise the land to me, to you, to them; nor did He promise the land to all of us together. Abraham did not receive the land as an individual, but as the father of a future nation. The owner of the Promised Land is the Knesset Israel, which is a community persona.