Many years ago, I did some learning and much work with Rabbi Michael Skobac, co-founder of the wonderful Jews For Judaism organization. We collaborated on countering deceptive missionary tactics and educating young and vulnerable members of our community to immunize themselves against this age old challenge.

One of the things Rabbi Skobac talked about was the intersection at times in our history of missionizing with Jew-hatred. In one of our discussions, he put it this way, as I recall: “The missionary wants to bring the idea of a redemptive messiah to the world, but in the Jewish people he finds the subject matter experts, who received the revelation of Sinai, established the Davidic dynasty, and introduced the very concept of the messiah to the world. It is presumptive and also frustrating for the evangelist to tell a Jew that everything they know and learned from their prophets, sages, and ancestors is wrong. It’s a really hard sell.”

A longer discussion about the way in which the Christian-Jewish relationship has evolved is warranted. Today I write to try to understand how the Jewish idea of the messianic impulse forms a large part of how our community, blessed to be a part of the American mosaic, perceives the ebb and flow of our experience here, and what it has to say about America as we celebrate 250 years of liberty and independence.

There is a Jewish lens through which we understand our experiences, whether we sat in our Bubbe’s kitchen as she made rugelach and sang about redemption, or we sat in a yeshiva and pondered the intricacies of Jewish law. Both of these and so many other paradigms are infused with, and informed by, our common legacies:

• A sense of diasporic insecurity, even though we have viewed these shores as the ‘Goldeneh Medineh’ for generations.
• A readiness or preparedness to depart, either willingly or forced, as the hospitable turns into the hateful, too reminiscent of hasty exile, and the clamor for redemption grows louder.
• An anticipation or expectation of that redemption from chaos, subjugation and fear, that is full, final, and of equal benefit to all in the one place where such freedom ought to take hold.
• A subsequent export of these values and dreams across the globe, marking a new epoch for all of humanity.

As we gather among friends and neighbors to celebrate this 250th Independence Day, we are surrounded even within our borders by the forces and the movements on all sides that make redemption, and our longing for it, even more essential. We’ve seen this country, its Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and its Federal system as a guarantor of the messianic impulse in the modern world. No other polity has even approached its consequence. And we are disappointed, even fearful, when it doesn’t live up to the fulfillment of our expectations.

I can’t in good conscience or seriousness tell you not to be worried or doubting. The insecurity we all feel, even in this blessed place at this time, is undeniable. But I can comfort you with these thoughts:

We are indeed the originators and subject matter experts on the messianic impulse. And we should not be shocked or surprised at the incremental way or pace that it takes to reveal itself. Think of it this way - consider what the world looked like for Jews 250 years ago, in 1776.

In 1776, Jews almost nowhere had full or equal citizenship. Our condition ranged from semi-protected commercial minorities to legally restricted, ghettoized, taxed, expelled, or periodically attacked communities.

In England, Jews had relative safety and commercial opportunity, but not full civic equality. A 1753 naturalization law for Jews was repealed after public antisemitic backlash. In France, only after their revolution, full citizenship came in 1790. In proto-Germany and Austria, Jews faced residence limits, special taxes, marriage restrictions, guild exclusions, and dependence on princes. Emancipation was still decades away. In Lithuania, Jews had strong communal institutions and played major roles in trade, leasing, crafts, and estate economies. But the 1772 first partition of Poland began transferring many Jews into Prussian, Austrian, and Russian rule, where conditions could be dangerous. The 1768 Haidamak uprising included the massacre of Jews at Uman, only eight years before 1776; Jewish refugees had gathered there, and many were killed. Russia proper had generally excluded Jews unless they converted. After 1772, Russia suddenly acquired large Jewish populations from Polish lands, creating the restrictive and vulnerable environment that later developed into the Pale of Settlement. In Ottoman lands, Jews were legally tolerated as dhimmis, protected non-Muslims. They could maintain synagogues, courts, communal leadership, trade networks, and religious life, but they lived in mellahs (ghettos), paid special taxes and faced social/legal inferiority and occasional deadly violence. Tolerance did not mean equal citizenship. In Spanish and Portuguese colonies, open Jewish life was largely impossible under Iberian Catholic rule because of the Inquisition. Many Jews were conversos or descendants of conversos, sometimes secretly maintaining Jewish identity

And what of America?

In New York, Newport, and Philadelphia, Jews were a tiny minority, but generally lived openly, traded, founded synagogues, and participated in Revolutionary-era life. They still faced Christian test oaths and political exclusions in some colonies, but day-to-day conditions were often better than in much of Europe. And so the stage was set for the Goldeneh Medineh. In time, American Jewish communities grew, flourished, and became strong. Every decade brought progress, freedom, and growth. Every war or economic challenge brought threat and danger, it is true. But progress, though incremental, was inexorable.

That’s the point. Our messianic longing is woven into our DNA. We look for the thunderclap of immediate redemption in the country we love and in its institutions. But we know, through long experience, that achieving the flowering of a messianic era (one of peace, health, plenty, sister-and-brotherhood, and security for all people) is a process measured in hundreds and in thousands of years, not in weeks or months. We know, better than anyone, that the challenges on the way are daunting and numerous. But they are not insurmountable. And in this place, at this time, as we seek a ‘more perfect union’ together, we can weather any storm, brave any threat, and build an American future together.

Happy Fourth of July!