This week we mark the Fourth of July. Americans will take to the beaches. They will join in parades. They will fill the sky with fireworks. There will be barbecues and American music, cherry pie and domestic beer. We will mark 249 years since the formal founding of the United States. It is a day on which we celebrate our independence and the birth of what would become the American experiment. We look back at the iconic figures, flawed though they may have been, who enabled the existence of our nation. The names read like a song: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Lincoln… We consider as well those more contemporary names that urged our country forward in no uncertain terms, names such as Eleanor Roosevelt, JFK, MLK and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We pause as well to appreciate the writers and artists that also helped to frame our understanding of our country, like Allen Ginsberg, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Maya Angelou and Amanda Gorman. These lists could go on and on.

Maybe, like me, you are not feeling overly patriotic these days. Maybe, like me, July 4th comes more as a reminder of all that we are not. How on earth can we celebrate? How can we celebrate an America that continues to be mired in racism, xenophobia, homophobia and bigotry? How can we celebrate an America in which antisemitism is more the rule than exception? How can we celebrate an America in which there is such glaring inequity when it comes to education, healthcare and reproductive freedom? How can we celebrate an America that denigrates the Constitution or the foundational principles on which the Constitution itself rests? How can we celebrate an America that sullies the very premise of democracy by denying the courts and balks at the notion of checks and balances?

I continue to be proud to be an American in spite of all of it. These are the shores to which my grandparents fled. This is the place that has created room for Jews and Judaism like virtually no other land. It is here that I choose to raise three children, trying all the time to have them see their power in helping to create a society that is more equitable, more peaceful, more compassionate. It is here that I can protest, raising my voice against the blaring voice of would-be tyrants or those who traffic in ignorance. It is here that I can live such Jewish values as tikkun olam, tzedakah, learning Torah, visiting the sick and lifting up the fallen. It is here that I can practice a Judaism that is inclusive, alive and relevant. It is here that I grew up and it is here that I became a rabbi. It is here that I live my Jewish life as robustly and fully as I can.

I know I am not alone. I know that so much of this speaks to your experience as well, especially of late. I know you will join me in continuing to fight for an America that works for all of us and makes space for all of us, no matter our faith or gender or sexuality or background. As we approach 250 years of this complicated nation, may we not give up on it, and not give up on each other.