A Message from Rabbi Bellows

June 29, 2025 /3 Tammuz 5785 

Dear Beth Am Friends,

This week, as we plan for our 4th of July picnics and decide where to watch the fireworks, I hope we also might find ourselves thinking about the meaning of America’s Independence Day—a celebration rooted in the ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

While I am most certainly grateful to live in this great Democracy, currently, America is hardly living its best life.

The prophet Jeremiah speaks with urgency to a society dangerously close to moral collapse. In Jeremiah 22:1-5, God instructs him to deliver a message not to the people but directly to power—to the king of Judah and his court:

“Do what is just and right; rescue from the defrauder him who is robbed; do not wrong the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow… do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place.”

Jeremiah’s words cut across time. His cry is not only for the palace of Judah but for every government, every Nation—including our own. It is a demand for justice, a command to protect the vulnerable, and a warning: if we fail to uphold these moral imperatives, even the most majestic palaces can crumble into ruin.

America is not yet what she proclaimed to be. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” cannot be fully realized when we witness the resurgence of laws that make it harder to vote, or when we see immigrants who are seeking safety and dignity met instead with unlawful deportation, or when we see antisemitism is normalized in political discourse and online, threatening the safety of our communities.

As Jews, our tradition compels us to respond and to act, working to bring the democratic ideals on which this country was founded into fuller expression in our time.

May our patriotism be expressed in action that upholds the ideals of our Nation. May we see better times ahead.

L’Shalom,

Rabbi Bellows