The God Squad: The spiritual meaning of America

Rabbi Marc Gellman, Tribune Content Agency on Jul 1, 2021

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

I am also thinking about Abraham Lincoln this July 4th. On Nov. 19, 1863 at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the following address:

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here. It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

I am thinking not of the 40,000 casualties of that battle, but of the 600,000 casualties of our struggle with this plague. It is absolutely fitting and holy that it is on this July 4th that we can begin to celebrate, tentatively to be sure, but still celebrate, our return to normalcy. Their deaths are a deep wound but also a deep inspiration. After so many defeats in so many recent wars, we can finally celebrate a victory over a microscopic enemy that was unable to vanquish our enduring dream.

Happy Independence Day!

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman.)