Rabbi Featured at ‘Rededicate 250’ Discusses Judaism’s Impact on America’s Founders| National Catholic Register
Thousands gathered on the National Mall Sunday for a day of prayer as part of the celebrations for the nation’s 250th birthday. The event, “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving,” featured praise-and-worship music and prayers from prominent Christian leaders, as well as one Jewish speaker: Rabbi Meir Soloveichik.
Rabbi Soloveichik recalled to the gathering that Irving Berlin, who as a young Jewish boy fled to the United States after witnessing his village destroyed in a Russian pogrom, as a soldier serving in the U.S. Army during the First World War wrote the lyrics to God Bless America.
“The power and popularity of God Bless America reveals to us that America’s passion for prayer and its love of liberty are always intertwined,” he said.
The connection between faith and freedom is a subject that Soloveichik has explored in his writing as a contributor to Commentary Magazine and First Things, among other publications. Soloveichik is the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, and director of The Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. He previously served as vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and was appointed by President Donald Trump to the Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty.
The Register interviewed Rabbi Soloveichik about the event on the National Mall and the importance of remembering the role of faith in America’s founding.
What inspired you to participate in “Rededicate 250,” and what message did you hope to send Americans at this particular moment?
I was invited and was very honored to participate. As I understand it, this was an event marking an anniversary in American history. The Continental Congress proclaimed a day of prayer on that very date [May 17] 250 years earlier. As it happens, my own congregation, which is the oldest congregation in America, actually took part in that day of prayer 250 years before. That just added another layer of meaning as far as participating in the event was concerned. Americans have always prayed, and it’s been a central part of American public life. Any event that will further reinvigorate faith as part of our civic and social fabric is a very good thing.
Religious faith in the United States, has, of course, declined in the last 250 years. Is it possible for this experiment in democracy to continue even if it is detached from biblical faith?
What I would say is that the great justification of the American idea — the American creed, which is at the heart of the Declaration, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights — is the doctrine that the Hebrew Bible gave to the world, which is that every one of us is created in the image of God.
God made, as Genesis describes, man and woman in His image. And that, I think, is the great foundation philosophically for what lies at the very heart of the Declaration that we will celebrate on this July 4th. John Adams wrote that “the Hebrews” gave to the world “the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty Sovereign of the universe.” He described that as the foundation of all morality. It’s certainly true that the Founders of America emphasized that the biblical idea lay at the heart of the American concept of equality.
In your writing, you have quoted the late Michael Novak, the Catholic philosopher who died in 2017, who argued that the Founders were inspired by the Hebrew Bible. Could you draw that out for our readers?
Michael Novak has a very good book called On Two Wings, which describes how both faith and reason played an important role in the story of the founding and in the philosophy of the founding.
Novak argues that the text of the Hebrew Bible played a very important role in the founding for several reasons. He argues that its language served as a uniting force among members of different Christian denominations, but also that the Hebrew Bible gives to the world a providential notion of history — and that this played a very important role as well in the perspective of the Founders. The fact that a profound Catholic thinker is making this case is itself, I think, inspirational — he is noting the important role that Jewish Scripture played in the story of the founding.
What [Novak] argues is that because the Hebrew Bible is, to a great extent, about a political entity, a people in a land, a country, a government — the story of biblical Israel — therefore, that served as a source of political inspiration to the Founders who were building a covenantal country. And I would add that this concept is reflected in the writings and the speeches of the man I, and I think others, would describe as the theologian of the American idea, the great successor to the Founders, and that is Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln spoke of America as an “almost chosen people.” That was his phrase. He utilized striking language and imagery from the Hebrew Bible in significant moments.
This is a theme that one sees at the founding and also after the founding. Benjamin Franklin’s suggestion for the seal of the United States was, at least in part, an image of Moses and the Pharaoh at the splitting of the sea, with the motto “Rebellion to Tyrants Is Obedience to God.” That was the suggestion for the Seal of the United States put forward by a committee formed on July 4, 1776, a committee made up of Franklin, Adams and Jefferson.
It wasn’t ultimately adopted, but the very fact that this was their suggestion reflects in a profound way how the story and imagery of biblical Israel impacted the Founders. George Washington, in his letter to the Jews of Savannah, Georgia, concludes by speaking of how the God that took biblical Israel out of Egypt is the same God that made his providence manifest in the Revolution. This imagery is very prominent in many of the statements and writings of the Founders.
There have been reports of widespread biblical illiteracy in our culture, even at elite universities. A professor at Princeton University wrote in The Washington Post that students at a lecture on religion and free speech did not know what the Ten Commandments were. What do you think are the consequences of that?
There is no question that there is less biblical literacy, at least in some parts of our culture. I wrote an article in Commentary Magazine about an episode of Jeopardy! where the question was essentially asking the contestants to name the biblical book in which the verse “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” appears, which is, of course, the Psalms. And not that long ago, it would be hard to find an American that couldn’t name the source of that verse, and here all three [Jeopardy!] contestants didn’t know it.
There’s a wonderful company called Wonder Project, on whose Faith Council I’m privileged to serve, that is doing extraordinary work in producing a series about one of the great biblical stories, House of David, as well as a miniseries about Moses, along with a film that relates to the story of America, Young Washington, that will soon be released. That’s one very important example of a company that is producing cultural content that relates to the Bible, as well as the story of America.
Should universities teach the Bible?
As far as universities are concerned, I think that it’s impossible to truly study history or the humanities without a real knowledge of the Bible. I have taught a course called “Shakespeare and the Bible,” and what it seeks to teach students is that some of the most important themes in some of the most famous of Shakespeare’s plays are impossible to understand if you don’t also comprehend the religious setting in which these plays were written, as well as the biblical allusions in these plays. How can one understand the history of Western civilization if one doesn’t understand how the Bible impacted Western civilization? Biblical literacy is necessary for anyone who truly wishes to study Western history at the highest level, as well as the literature of the West at the highest level.
You earned your doctorate in religion at Princeton University, where you studied, among other teachers, under Robert George. What was that like?
He’s one of the great Catholic intellectuals in America, and I’m so indebted to him for what he taught me. He is one of the great sources of wisdom in the academy today.
What makes Robert George such a great professor?
What he’s bringing to the academy is truly excellent teaching of the most superb quality. He makes the case for what some of the central political and legal traditions of America have always been, and, equally importantly, he is truly dedicated to engaging students and to allowing for a free debate and discussion about ideas. Robby George is one of the most gifted teachers of our generation because of his wisdom and also because of the way in which he seeks to engage others and is open to others engaging him. That, of course, is what the university experience was originally supposed to be all about: an exchange of ideas at the highest level.
And finally, we at the National Catholic Register have been reporting on a recent uptick of interest in the Catholic faith among young people, which may be a sign that a religious revival might be taking place. Are you seeing this among young Jewish people as well?
I think that the past several years have been challenging ones for Jewry. But it is also true that some of these challenges have inspired some Jews to further reflect on the story of the Jewish people as well as the miraculous nature of Jewish history. And that has inspired them to further engage their heritage.
