A man of faith is counting his blessings this July 4th — and sharing key reminders for all about the creation of our country.
"The United States is unique in world history and its founding is the greatest of all human endeavors," Rabbi Pinchas Taylor of Plantation, Florida, told Fox News Digital in emailed comments.
"The formation of the United States is the pivotal event of the last four centuries — and no other national story has more profound lessons for both the American people and the rest of humanity," he said.
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Rabbi Taylor, a father of seven, noted that "observers of all faiths — and of no faith — can discern signs of destiny’s direction in the formation of America."
Said Taylor, "While many nations progressively evolved into democratic societies over centuries, the United States was the first nation to be founded upon democracy."
Taylor said that "scholars usually acknowledge the influence of the Hebrew Bible, ethical ideals and spiritual beliefs on American political tradition."
That includes, he said, "the belief in one God, that He demands righteousness, and that we are made in God's image."
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Said Taylor, "Even those within the founding age who were less religiously devout looked to the Bible for understandings of human nature, civic virtue, social order, political authority and other ideas crucial to the foundation of a new political society."
And "many people," he added, "felt that the political and legal structures found in Scripture, such as the separation of powers and the rule of law, enjoyed divine favor and should be imitated in modern democracies."
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Taylor said he finds it "fascinating" that the Declaration of Independence "refers to ‘all men being created equal’ as a ‘self-evident’ truth."
Said Taylor, "Most societies in most times have not subscribed to that. This is only ‘self-evident’ to those who would subscribe to the biblical idea that God created human beings equally in his image."
He added, "If they were not created equally, they certainly evolved unequally. There is no basis for democracy except grounded in belief about the divine origin of man."
Taylor said, "Thus, it was a Declaration of Independence from Britain, and a bold ‘Declaration of Dependence’ upon God. Likewise, as President John Adams famously noted, ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’"
Taylor pointed out that the United States has been a nation of faith from its earliest days.
"The early settlers viewed their emigration from England as a reenactment of the Israelites exodus from Egypt. The Kings of England were the pharaohs, and the Atlantic Ocean was the Red Sea taking them to America, their new promised land."
Said Taylor, "When the Continental Congress named the first committee to design a great seal, or national emblem, for the country, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson chose an allegorical scene with Moses standing on the shore, extending his hand over the sea."
The rabbi also pointed that the Liberty Bell "is etched with a biblical verse. Throughout the following century, the art, symbols and literature in the fight for abolition were saturated with Moses’ symbolism and biblical texts like ‘Let my people go!’"
Said Taylor, "The role of biblical values in America's founding is indisputable — and the success of the American experiment is undergirded by a worldview based in the Hebrew Bible."
He said that "strengthening our connection with the biblical values etched in the America’s history" will help all Americans "properly shape" our country's destiny.
"Both our Founding Fathers and the Hebrew Bible believed that morality comes from God — and income comes from personal decisions" the individual makes.
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Said Taylor, "Some today would like to push for the opposite, that income should come from the god called government."
He added, "Both our Founding Fathers and the Hebrew Bible teach that respectful discussion helps us arrive at an essential truth, whereas some in contemporary America have already decided their truth, so there's no need for discussion."
Noted Rabbi Taylor, "Both the Founding Fathers and the Hebrew Bible believe that you are strong, capable and responsible for your own destiny — whereas some today would preach that you are weak and simply a victim of circumstance."
Taylor said, "This July 4th would be an ideal opportunity to remember the blessing that it is to live in the most free and prosperous society in the history of the world, to remember that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights and a divine mission — and that we should embody the words of Abraham Lincoln that we are ‘an almost-chosen people’ in an ‘almost chosen land.’"
