For the Constitution and for Divine Assistance
As adolescents in Chicago’s Jewish high school in the 1950s, we were taught the Constitution. I, along with some classmates were overwhelmed by its moral force and lucidity. I asked my Talmud teacher, a Holocaust survivor, who knew that document inside and out, a question: “Was the American Constitution written with Ruach ha-Kodesh, with Divine Inspiration?”
He looked at me for a minute and replied: “Maybe not, but certainly with Sayata diShmaya, with Divine Assistance.” He added: “you need to know how fortunate you are to live with this protection…” He paused. “Something we did not have in Europe.”
We have ample reason to ponder this Talmudist’s wise response. The Constitution protects us by providing boundaries for a civil life. What happens when the government abandons these safeguards and moral directions of its Constitution? We see in Minneapolis and across the United States of America terrible activities by well-armed masked men who brazenly create intimidation, fear, and now death. Not only as Americans, but as Jews, we understand this evil mischief that intentionally tends towards fascism.
Our rabbis taught: “Pray for the welfare of the government, for without fear of it, men would swallow each other alive.”
But what can we do when the government itself directs such staggering terrible behavior? All of us must emulate the peaceful protestors who unwaveringly stand in protection of each other, of all of us, and of our American ideals. The prayer for the “well-being of the government” in the original is “shalom” – we must fight and prevail for our own sakes to return the government to the ideal of peace and wholeness for all who dwell within.
