King David and the American Ideal
Rabbi Balkany once again inspires us to act better and be better.
Our Father in Heaven!
The course of history is engraved footfall by footfall. As we seek to hew the pathway for tomorrow’s tranquility, we are moved by the eternal words of the psalmist: “I lift my eyes up to the hills, from where does my help come?” As both poet and warrior, King David bore the weight of the future as squarely on his shoulders as we do today, and his response was to look upward. Written millennia before the birth of these United States, King David’s words epitomize the American Ideal. The very symbols of our nation- the fifty stars radiating from our nation’s flag, the majestic eagle that swoops heavenward on our seal- they call us to soar to the heights, away from the minutiae, far from the small squabbles that distort and divert. Choosing to sow the seeds of righteousness over the fleeting satisfaction of the instant fix, this is the best of American Tradition. Whether we stand at the peak of Mount McKinley, atop Seattle’s Space Needle, or with the wind whistling through our hair on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, we seek Your blessing and pray that you will shelter us against the winds of petty division and distraction on our journey along the high road in search of the long view. Open our eyes that we may feel, in King David’s immortal words, “Your watchfulness as we depart and enter, from this time forth and forever.”
Rabbi Milton Balkany offers us a view of history and current events which is seen through the lens of the ancient wisdom of the Jewish tradition.
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