January 20, 2017
22 Tevet 5777
Dear Friends,
I believe it was in 1933, during the Great Depression, when that phrase,
"The First Hundred Days" was first used: to describe the very intense first three months of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term of office, when he pushed a flurry of New Deal legislation through Congress to stimulate the economy and get America back to work again.
Those first hundred days were a time of great change. Some say that they restored America's greatness, saving it from the brink of disaster.
Throughout the recent presidential campaign -- and even after the election -- much has been said about the intention of our next President to do whatever he can during the first hundred days of his term in office to "Make America Great Again."
Some Americans are excited about the potential for real change during these next 100 days. Many others are deeply worried.
There is much confusion in the land regarding the proper course for our nation -- and for each of us individually -- to follow.
At times like these, what are we to do? One response is to pray, which is a traditional Jewish response. This makes sense to me. Tomorrow morning, I'll be speaking in synagogue about the 2,500-year-old Jewish tradition of praying for the welfare of the government of whatever land we happen to live in.
I also though think it is helpful to ponder and to reflect analytically on the values that might underlie our understanding of what America is all about, and our vision of what good government is all about.
One source of guidance is religious tradition. Our nation, of course, has no state-sponsored religious faith. Rather, America consists of a plurality of people of a variety of religious -- and non-religious -- faiths. (Our motto, after all, is "E pluribus unum," or "Out of Many, One".) Hence, to understand the values that we might wish to draw on to better understand and to promote responsive and responsible government, it is essential to listen to and to learn from a variety of sources.
With this in mind, I want to bring to your attention a fascinating non-partisan initiative that can serve as a stimulating way to focus your thinking over the next hundred days.
"American Values, Religious Voices: 100 Days. 100 Letters" is a national non-partisan campaign that has brought together a stellar group of 100 scholars from many different religious traditions to articulate core American values that have grounded our nation in the past and that may guide us as we move forward at this time of political transition. Some of the names may be familiar to some of us. They include, for example, Professor Marc Brettler, who has taught in our own synagogue, and Professor Judith Plaskow, a renowned Jewish feminist theologian.
On each of these next 100 days, a one-page letter, authored by a participating scholar, will be sent to the President, Vice President, Cabinet Secretaries, and Members of the House and Senate. These letters
will be made available to the general public on the campaign website and will also be shared with subscribers. The first letter will appear today, on Inauguration Day,
January 20, 2017.
Please take a minute to visit the campaign's website (click here) and consider becoming a subscriber so that you can receive each day's letter in your inbox. Alternatively, you may follow the campaign on social media. Look for: @ValuesandVoices on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Before we know it, these first hundred days will have flown by. Let's take full advantage of them, to reflect and discuss together a variety of moral principles. We may learn that more unites us than we think. I hope we do.
