Stronger in the Cracked Places
This week’s Torah portion, B’har, contains one of the most famous passages in American civic history: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” It is inscribed on the Liberty Bell, a symbol of freedom and opportunity that preceded our nation’s founding. The verse describes the yovel or Jubilee, a once-in-fifty-year celebration of release, as all who had fallen upon hard economic times were permitted to return to their families and to their ancestral lands. It was an affirmation that, ultimately, all belongs to God, and that opportunities for a second chance are part of the divine vision for humanity.
But these words take on greater meaning in light of the threats to our liberal democratic system in this current moment. The pillars of our judiciary and its undaunted pursuit of justice are being undermined, corrupted, and weaponized as cudgels against political enemies toward the creation of an authoritarian regime. The cracks in our current system are an expression of the cracks in the Bell itself. But just as those cracks could not diminish the power of the Bell’s symbolism as it dampened its sound and function, so too may the cracks in our current civic life augur a more robust defense of those ideals we have taken for granted, those freedoms we could so easily lose, and those values that are worthy of the fullness of our service and our sacrifice.