Unfinished Things, Still Worth Loving

This weekend, millions of Americans will gather in backyards, at beaches, and beneath fireworks. We’ll wave flags. We’ll sing patriotic songs. We’ll celebrate the Semi-quincentennial, the 250th birthday of this remarkable country.

And if you’re anything like me…you may do so with a mixture of gratitude and anxiety.

As I sat down to think about these words, I asked myself what seemed like it ought to be a simple question: When was the last time I remember feeling especially proud to be an American? I expected an answer to come quickly. It didn’t.

And that realization made me a little sad. Not because there is no goodness here. There is. But because the arguments have become so loud, the fear so present, the cruelty so visible, that sometimes the pride feels more fleeting than it used to.

Maybe some of you feel that way, too.

As Jews, many of us have discovered over these last few years that assumptions we once took for granted about belonging, about safety, about how quickly neighbors can become suspicious of one another, feel less settled than they once did.

And of course, we are hardly alone in that feeling.

Which is why, over the past few weeks, I have found myself smiling at an unexpected display of American pride.

The World Cup has brought visitors to the United States from around the globe. And, no doubt, many of them arrived with a picture of America they had absorbed from headlines, movies, and social media. America as polarized. Angry. Unsafe.

Instead, many of them found something else. They found strangers who stopped to help. People who struck up conversations with them while they were standing in line. Neighbors eager to recommend a favorite barbecue place. American families inviting foreigners to join their tailgate.

And then there were the delights that no travel guide could have prepared these visitors for. Self service ice machines. Free refills. Oversized pickup trucks. Taco Bell. John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads.’ Scottish people wandering through Buc-ee’s as though it were a national monument. (ok, it actually is!) German visitors discovering ranch dressing with the enthusiasm of archaeologists uncovering a lost civilization.

The internet has been filled with these little moments in recent weeks. Funny. Warm. Unexpected.

And watching them, I found myself seeing America through fresh eyes. Sometimes it takes a visitor it seems, to remind us what is beautiful and silly about our own home.

And yet…that isn’t the whole story, of course. At this same moment, others visitors experienced America very differently. For some travelers, the journey here was marked not by welcome, but by suspicion, bureaucratic obstacles, or exclusion altogether.

The same nation that could welcome one stranger with astonishing generosity could leave another feeling that they were not welcome at all.

So which America is real? The one that welcomes? Or the one that excludes?

I’ve recently been reading Daniel Immervahr’s remarkable book, “How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.”

Immervahr’s central observation is surprisingly simple. Most Americans carry around what he calls a kind of “logo map.” A simplified picture of the United States. You know, the familiar outline. The fifty states. The stories of our founding as a nation we like to tell ourselves- especially at this season of the year.

But the real map, Immervahr argues, has always been more complicated. It includes territories most Americans rarely think about, for example. More than 8 million people who live under the American flag without enjoying all the rights that most Americans assume are universal. Stories that don’t fit neatly into our national mythology.

Whether or not you agree with every one of Immervahr’s conclusions, I think he is asking an important question: What happens when we mistake the logo for the whole map?

Perhaps patriotism begins when we are willing to love the real map. Not only the parts that make us proud. The whole country. The beautiful parts. And the broken ones.

That idea reminded me of a Torah portion we read just a few weeks ago. In Shelach Lecha from earlier in the book of Numbers, Moses sends twelve spies to scout out the Land of Israel. They all see the same land. The same vineyards. The same cities. The same people.

When they return, they do not disagree about the facts of the place. They do disagree, however, about what those facts mean.

Ten spies see giants. Danger. Fear. “This is a land that devours its inhabitants,” they say. “Let’s go back to Egypt.”

Joshua and Caleb, on the other hand, look at the very same landscape and declare, “It is a very, very good land; let’s go forward.”

So who’s telling the truth?

Actually, the 10 scouts and the 2 – both are telling the truth. The giants were real. The challenges were real. And, the promise was real. The beauty was real. The question wasn’t whether the land was complicated. The question was whether its complications would consume the entire story.

I wonder whether we are standing at a similar moment 250 years since our Declaration of Independence. Some people look at America and see only the giants. Division. Hatred. Antisemitism. Racism. Fear.

Others see only the fireworks. The ideals. The prosperity. The generosity. The hope.

But in reality, neither picture is complete.

The Torah never asks us to love illusions. It asks us to love reality.
Think about our own sacred story.

The Torah does not hide Abraham’s failures in the book of Genesis. Or Jacob’s deception. Or Moses’ anger. Or King David’s sins. The Golden Calf story is not edited out of the Bible, although it surely could have been along the way.

And the prophets of our tradition don’t flatter the people Israel. Isaiah doesn’t pretend that everything is fine. Neither does Amos. Nor Jeremiah. They love the Jewish people too much to lie about her. But their criticism isn’t the opposite of love. It is one expression of it. Because covenantal love always tells the truth.

Which brings me back to this Fourth of July weekend. I sometimes worry that we’ve been offered only two definitions of patriotism. One says: A patriot celebrates America. The other says: A patriot criticizes America.

Judaism suggests that these definitions are both incomplete.

The opposite of patriotism isn’t criticism. The opposite of patriotism is indifference. Patriotism is gratitude that takes responsibility. Patriotism is refusing to mistake the logo for the map.

Patriotism is believing that this nation can still become more nearly what it has always promised to be, and working to make it so.

My friends, I love that, for a few weeks during the World Cup, visitors to these shores have reminded us of something precious.

That ordinary Americans are often remarkably kind. Generous. Curious. Helpful. Hospitable.

These are not imaginary virtues, and they deserve celebration.
But they also deserve expansion.

If we delight that strangers discover kindness at Buc-ee’s, shouldn’t we also ask whether strangers discover kindness at our borders?

If we’re proud that visitors leave saying, “Americans are so welcoming,” shouldn’t we hope that becomes true for every person who encounters our country?

The goal isn’t to erase the first story with the second. The goal is to make the first story true more often.

Tomorrow night, many of us will watch fireworks. The sky will briefly become what we wish the world could be. Bright. Joyful. Filled with wonder.

And then, as always, the smoke will drift away, and the work of America will remain.

That isn’t a failure of the holiday. It actually just might be its purpose. The Fourth of July isn’t a celebration of a finished nation. It’s a reminder that unfinished things are still worth loving. Worth believing in. Worth working for.

So wave the flag. Sing the songs. Pass the burgers. Dip them in ranch dressing, if you must. And then, when the fireworks fade, let us practice a patriotism worthy of both our nation and our Jewish tradition.

A patriotism that celebrates what is beautiful…tells the truth about what is broken…and refuses to let giants get the last word.

Because the people who love a country best are not the ones who flatter it. They are the ones who never stop calling it back to its highest ideals.