By Rabbi Sari Laufer
Thanks perhaps to a decade’s worth of sleepaway camp fireworks displays, I have an unabashed love of popular Americana music. We’re not talking God Bless America, America the Beautiful, or other true classics. No, no. I have been known to rock out, in particular, to Lee Greenwood’s country hit: God Bless the USA.
And this year, in particular, I keep coming back to the opening lyrics:
If tomorrow all the things were gone
I worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
I thank my lucky stars
To be living here today
While the song is one of sheer national pride, I appreciate that Greenwood, whether he meant to or not, starts at a place of uncertainty, of pain, of uprootedness. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, I think the political events of the last few weeks have made many of us feel this way. But more important than the experience of the here and now, there is something eternal and inspirational in the space that Greenwood describes. It is the space of the very first July 4, and it is the space in which we find ourselves in the Jewish calendar as well.
Last Saturday night, as Shabbat came to a close, the Fast of 17 Tammuz began. According to our texts, the 17 of Tammuz is the day on which the walls of Jerusalem were breached; it is the harbinger of Tisha B’Av, our national day of mourning for the destruction of the Temple. These days, between 17 Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, are known as the three weeks of rebuke. For three weeks, we confront some of our harshest prophetic texts; each Shabbat, we hear the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah speak of our faithlessness, of God’s disappointment, and of the impending doom that is imminent if we do not mend our ways. In Hebrew, the Three Weeks are known as bein ha-metzarim, literally—within the straits, within the narrow places. It is a time of uprootedness, of uncertainty, of hesitancy—and a time of some urgency.
The Three Weeks on the Jewish calendar end with Tisha B’Av, a day of intense mourning and introspection, the day on which the things were gone we’d worked for all of our (historical) lives. Our tradition teaches that of all of the days of the year, all of the feasts and the celebrations, the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av. We are taught throughout the Three Weeks that we cannot give in to despair. The Third Shabbat is called Shabbat Hazon, the Shabbat of Vision. In the depths of our desolation, the Hasidic masters teach, we are shown a vision of the world as it could be.
I imagine these were feelings—as well as Scriptural references—familiar to the Founding Fathers. Certainly, they understood disappointment and a feeling of impending doom. They too understood uprootedness and uncertainty, and they certainly understood urgency. And while we celebrate independence and America’s birthday on July 4, the truth is that July 4, 1776, was only the beginning of a long and difficult slog towards freedom. In fact, it was a shot in a war that we were not convinced that we would win. The Declaration of Independence set out a vision and a hope, it set out the prospect of the America in which we want to live and love. But it did not come about at once; one might argue that it is still flawed, still a work in progress, still a dream and a hope and an ideal towards which we can and do strive. And maybe it is that hope—and the chutzpah—that we continue to celebrate, year after year. And maybe it is that hope—and our ongoing chutzpah—for which we thank our lucky stars (or say our Shabbat blessings).
Shabbat Shalom and a (belated) Happy Fourth!