“One Nation Under God?”
Parashat Vayyikra— March , 2004

A few moments ago, we put the Torah back into the Ark. As we marched around the room, we chanted Psalm 29, which was the choral accompaniment to our processional. Were today a weekday instead of Shabbat, we would have done things a little differently. On all other occasions when we return the Torah to the Ark, such as on a Monday or a Thursday morning, we chant a different psalm, Psalm 24, instead. Whenever I’m at one of those weekday services, and we chant that psalm, it has an intimate familiarity to me. I think back to a particular scene that must have been repeated fairly often, otherwise I wouldn’t remember it so vividly. The scene is the auditorium of the elementary school I attended in the early 1960’s. I believe that we had assembly once a week, and on those occasions, all of us—first through eighth graders—would file into the auditorium. Mostly, we sang songs together—songs from Broadway shows, like The Sound of Music, but also seasonal songs. And every time we gathered, one of our school officials—I think it was an assistant principal—would read us a chapter from the Bible. I have a distinct memory of her reading Psalm 24, because I can remember those amazing lines toward the end of it: “Lift up your heads, o ye gates, and let the King of glory enter!” I can remember wondering how gates could go ahead and do that! I remember being moved by that reading. I can remember all of us sitting still—as children tended to do in those days—listening intently to the words, not daring to speak. And I can remember how grateful I was that that reading, that particular reading, didn’t make me feel too different from the children among whom I was sitting.

For somehow I knew that there were parts of the Bible that we didn’t read, in my home or in my synagogue.

Those were the days when Bible reading in schools was the norm. It was considered proper, appropriate, right. To be against Bible readings? How could one? I liked those Bible readings. And yet I remember how vulnerable I felt, how grateful I was when I didn’t feel alienated by those readings, when those readings weren’t from the New Testament.

Two days ago, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in a case I never thought would make it that far. The question presented was whether it is or is not constitutional for a teacher to be required to lead a public school class in the Pledge of Allegiance, if it includes, as it currently does, the words, “Under God.”

The reason I never thought the case would go this far is that the Pledge is so much a part of our national culture. So many of us—at least, those who were raised here in this country—routinely recited the Pledge in our youths, and so many of our children—the younger ones, at least—recite it routinely today. To be against the Pledge, to attack even two small words within it, is to be against Motherhood and apple pie. How could anyone want to do that, and how could such an effort succeed?

And yet, reciting the Pledge has been attacked before—and successfully.

In the early 1940’s, a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses brought a lawsuit claiming that it was contrary to their religious faith to salute the flag, and thus to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The Court ruled in their favor. It accepted the argument that the State may not compel anyone to recite the Pledge if it is contrary to his or her religious principles. So, in fact, since 1943 it has not been a legal requirement for children to recite the Pledge—with or without the words “under God.”

Tell that to your nearest elementary school pupil.

In practice, that’s what’s done in practically every elementary school classroom in this country, whether it be public or private. Whether our children attend Schechter or Rashi or any of our local public elementary schools, they’re expected—if not formally required—to recite the Pledge every morning.

How should we, as Jews, feel about this? When that 1943 case was heard by the Supreme Court, there was a Jewish justice on the Supreme Court at the time, Felix Frankfurter. Although the majority of the Court believed that the State had no right to impose on children the responsibility to recite the Pledge, he disagreed. He dissented in that case, and wrote that the government could impose on its citizens the responsibility to recite the Pledge. He wrote a poignant opinion in which he made clear how miuch he loved America, and how grateful he was to America. Most of all, he demonstrated how much he wanted to prove his loyalty to America, particularly during wartime.

Now, just because he voted that way is no reason to believe that we all would have or should have, and besides, the precise issue before the Court today is whether children should be put in a position where they feel required to recite the Pledge with the words, “under God” in it. But I think we can all appreciate, from that opinion by Justice Frankfurter, how complex as Jews our feelings, our attitudes toward this, might be.

As Jews, one might think that we should feel pretty supportive of such an obligation. After all, as Jews, we recite such a declaration of allegiance to God, namely the Shema, twice a day. We teach it to our children and, as we do with the Pledge, we invite them to recite it with us out loud. And, so, what could be wrong with asking everyone to do the same? Only this: the problem with that comparison is that when we’re teaching our children the Shema, we are consciously indoctrinating them. So that’s not a useful comparison to those who want to demonstrate the constitutionality of the phrase “under God.”

What if, as one commentator suggested, what if the phrase was, “One nation, under Jesus.” Would we have any doubt about that? What about, “Under Our Father Who Art in Heaven,” or “under Allah”? Clearly, we would have a problem with that, and maybe, therefore, we should have some understanding for those who, similarly, find “under God” troubling, and maybe therefore we should be equally troubled.

One argument that was made in the Supreme Court on Thursday is that we shouldn’t take the words “under God” too seriously. Perhaps we should understand them to be a benign form of “ceremonial deism.” In other words, it’s an empty phrase. But if that’s the case, if it’s really just benign deism—then there’s actually a religious reason to be opposed to it: it trivializes faith in God; it trivializes religion, to say that “under God” doesn’t mean anything.

As one amicus brief submitted in the case suggested, if “under God” is just a harmless, empty phrase, then reciting the Pledge with those words “invites a troubling kind of civic blasphemy.” If children are supposed to utter the phrase without meaning it as an affirmation of personal faith, “then every day, government asks millions of school children to take the name of the Lord in vain.”

A. J. Heschel once said that either God is of infinite importance, or God is of no importance. What he meant by that, I think, is that if religion is just a form of ethnic identity; if worship is just a form of entertainment, then we’ve truly reduced God from an authoritative source of morality to a benevolent cheerleader.

Do we really want kids in this country saying “under God” if it doesn’t mean what it says and it doesn’t mean something rather profound? But if it does mean what it says, is it fair to impose the obligation to recite it on them?

As Jews, we are members of a covenantal people. We believe we have duties to God (the vertical covenant) and duties to fellow Jews (the horizontal covenant) and to our fellow human beings. Our lives are governed by the notion of mitzvah. And yet, when it comes to dogma, Judaism has been noticeably weak. Maimonides, as I’m sure many of us know, wrote thirteen principles that he believed every Jew should testify to. Recent scholarship suggests that these were not intended to be the basis of inviolable dogma. -More characteristic of the Jewish spirit is the passage from Micah: “Three things doth I require of thee, saith the Lord. To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

Doing, loving, and walking, . . . but not necessarily believing.

Notice that word, “thy,” in the phrase “thy God.” It says a lot. It acknowledges that different people can have different conceptions of the divine. Of course, that text doesn’t contemplate an atheistic approach. It was unthinkable to a Biblical writer that any sane human being would lack devotion to some God.

Today, of course, there are many sane people who lack faith in some God. Is that a problem for the rest of us? Does that really matter? Don’t we care—and shouldn’t we care—so much more about how they behave than about what they believe or in whom they believe?

Shouldn’t it matter to us that some people aren’t comfortable saying “under God”? Shouldn’t we support their right to freedom of conscience?

Some of us may very well take the perspective that, if we’ve been reciting the Pledge with the words, “under God” in it for fifty years, we can keep on reciting it that way. What’s the big deal? And after all, maybe it’s a good thing to develop character in our youngsters, to teach them that they should not only be loyal to the United States, but that they should recognize that the United States is not infallible, and that the ultimate determinant of the justness, the morality of a course of action is God.

Don’t we fear rabid nationalism? Doesn’t the phrase, “under God” serve as a useful control on our nationalistic ego? Isn’t a mature faith in God—as opposed to faith in human beings—a worthy objective? After all, as Psalm 118, which we recite as part of the Hallel service, goes, “It is better to trust in God than to trust in princes.” Today, we might add, “or presidents.”

There was a wonderful benefit to our Bible readings in school: I gained a familiarity with sacred scripture. Today, very few kids know the Bible. Very few kids have been exposed to the reading—the public reading—of the Bible.

Sometimes, when I’m conducting a funeral, I lead the congregation in the 23rd Psalm. There is a natural divide, according to age, between those who know it and those who don’t! The older folks remember reciting it in school, but not the younger ones. Yet, is it worth it? Is it worth having prayer in public schools in order to learn psalms?

If faced with the choice of requiring our children to profess a faith in God versus allowing them and their families the freedom of conscience to determine for themselves in whom they do or do not believe, which is more appealing?

On the night before the Israeli Declaration of Independence was to be signed, there was a major argument. The secular Jews who were on the drafting committee insisted that there be no mention of God. Representatives of the religious authorities insisted that there be an acknowledgment of God. A compromise was reached: At the very end of the document, the following phrase was inserted, “mitoch bitachon b’tsur yisrael”, -- i.e., “with trust in the Rock of Israel.” This satisfied the religious representatives, because they could understand it to refer to God. The secularists, on the other hand, understood it to refer to the inherent strength of the Jewish People. So everybody was happy. Ironically, this was translated into English as, “With trust in the Almighty,” which sounds an awful lot like, “under God.”

The Jewish ideal is not that the entire world should become Jewish, should worship God our way, should believe precisely what we do. The Jewish ideal is that everyone will come to identify with the values we hold dear—values such as justice and peace and loving-kindness—but that they’ll do it in their own time in their own way.

At the end of our service, we’ll recite a very familiar prayer, the Aleinu. Aleinu ends with the hope, expressed first by the prophet Zechariah, that one day everyone will have faith in God. “V’haya adonai la-melech, bayom ha-hu yiyeh adonai echad u’shmo echad.” On that day, bayom ha-hu, God will be One and His Name One. We’re not there yet, and until we get there, maybe we shouldn’t insist that we are.

Shabbat Shalom.