By Esti DeAngelis, Staff Writer
There are some concepts so essential to oneself that he knows he can never question them. This is not because he is secure in his belief in these matters, but rather because their undoing would mean the undoing of the person himself. And this is too existential a threat to bear.
For a political conservative, patriotism seems to be one of these notions. An unpatriotic conservative is the ultimate oxymoron, as one is no longer proud of whatever historic ideals his title suggests he wants to conserve. And yet, since October 7 and the subsequent failure of my country to confront the resulting climate of antisemitism, I, a definite conservative, have had to re-examine this value. Inspecting the state of my patriotism may be a frightening, existential endeavor, but I am afraid that if I do not, I will be abandoning an identity even more essential to myself: my Jewish identity. And so, I have ignored my reservations and asked the crucial question: What does patriotism look like in a country gone mad?
I considered this issue in the waning hours of the Fourth of July this year. It was a loud affair, as our neighbors across the alley put on a no-doubt illegal fireworks display directly over our property. I listened, and soon found myself amazed at how much fireworks reminded me of the terrorist rockets that are launched over Israel. How explosions overhead can signal celebration or despair, a nation whose freedom seems secure or a nation under threat of extermination. I found myself almost repulsed by American comfort, by its crude juxtaposition with the Israeli fight for the right to exist.
Sometimes it takes a new question to answer an initial one, and I found that this supposed American-Israeli contradiction achieved just this phenomenon in regard to my months-long struggle. I considered certainties about Israel, its ever-evolving government and its unending quest to define and defend its borders against international threats. It seemed to me that Israel understands that it is not whole nor complete, not yet physically secure nor ideologically defined. I once heard someone remark that criticizing Israeli government policies is an inherently Zionist activity, as by doing so each person fights for the Israel he envisions.
Therein lies the answer to my question. My resistance to seeing the American Story as complete is an inherently patriotic endeavor as well. I consider the traditional symbols that exist as the throughline of Americanism: great documents like the Constitution, the great speeches of our presidents and thought leaders. And yet, does our Constitution not, in outlining the reasons for its existence, acknowledge it will form only “a more perfect Union,” not a definitively perfect one? Do its amendments, by the very meaning of the word amend, not reinforce this acknowledgement? American pride in an un-American moment is understanding that the foundation of this nation is noble and great. It is dreaming, as Martin Luther King Jr. does, that “one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.”
Patriotism is believing in the greatness of this creed; it is knowing that America’s beauty comes from its acknowledgement that it could be made more beautiful. This is a Jewish idea too, affirming that one can hold in high regard a thing still imperfect. The book of Mishlei (24:16) tells us that a righteous man falls seven times and gets back up. These mistakes do not make him less great, rather, it is the fact that he learns from them that makes him great. The failures of a man, and perhaps of a country too, are part of his future triumph.
And so, although I see thousands waving flags of groups who consider murdering Jews a pastime, I do not lose hope in my country. I understand that this does not represent America. After all, do the Hamasniks not burn the American flag? Do they not align themselves with entities that, once they have destroyed Israel, wish to obliterate the West as well?
This is not the America I love; it is a brief period of ugliness from which the true America must rend itself free. The true America must stand up and say, “Not on my watch, not under my flag.” Perhaps America and Israel are more similar in this regard than I may have initially considered, the fireworks and rockets both representing nations still incomplete, fighting battles ideological and physical for survival.
The gemara (Bava Basra 14b) teaches that the pieces of the broken luchos were stored in the Aron alongside the second set of luchos. They were not discarded nor hidden away as a humiliating sign of a nation’s failure. Rather, they reminded us how much we had since learned, and existed as a testimony to our journey. I hope and pray that this un-American detour will soon be halted, it too preserved in history books as a reminder of the American impulse toward improvement and greater perfection. And, in the meantime, I do not hesitate to declare my patriotism, because I love this country, no matter how thick the fog that clouds its vision. G-d bless America.