All men are born equal11/18/2023 We can look toward the Bible to learn how to love and serve everyone no matter what their age, color, or ethnicity, gender, or nationality. Even more, it points the way to a wholeness in which the success of each other person is a part of our own success, a triumph of the common heritage of all humankind, and the realization of the divine confidence in our ability to see that His vison of a very good world should be fulfilled.God's word is very clear in telling us that all men are created equal and every single person can be a child of God, receiving the full inheritance of heaven. The realization of this fundamental concept of equality is what has unleashed the greatest and most widespread prosperity the world has ever known. The genius of understanding equality within difference is that it empowers each person to bring the full power of his or her unique and freely realized gifts to bear in peace, coordination, and harmony. We are equally granted the rights to life, to liberty, and to property and are equally sovereigns of our land. The Founders, though, got that deeper meaning. “Equality” is tossed about a great deal, but if one is really seeking to impose uniformity and equal misery, in obedience not to citizen sovereigns but some canonized doctrine, then one has missed the deepest and best meaning of equality. For whereas when man stamps many coins from one die, each one is an exact replica of the other, the Supreme King of Kings, the blessed Holy One stamped every person with the die of Adam yet no two are exactly the same. Therefore, the human being was created singular and unique … for thus it demonstrates the greatness of the blessed Holy One. The genius of the Sanhedrin texts is that they portray this absolute equality of mankind not as something that requires a totalitarian fear of human individuality, but rather, that which allows us to be free and unique individuals while still belonging to a whole and peaceful nation and world. It is in contemplation of that source that we find equality. No matter what the distinctions may be as humanity develops and differentiates into many individuals, each with their unique lives, we are all equal with respect to our ultimate origin. That we find feuding clans anyway should lead us to imagine how much the worse it would be had two or more humans been created at the outset….įor this reason was man created as single and unique - for the sake of peace between humankind, so that one person should not say to his fellow: My father was greater than yours. The human being was created as single and unique so as to prevent clans from feuding with each other. One of the rabbinic texts most often cited by them is Tractate Sanhedrin from the Talmud. The text is where the Bible itself deals with origins, the Book of Genesis, and within that book, the very first chapter: “And G-d created Man in His image.”Įnglish and Dutch republican thinkers at the dawn of Western democracy were deeply familiar with the rabbinic tradition on the foundations of law as the rabbis applied biblical principles to actual practical governance of a nation. That source would be known to all who were biblically literate, as were most Americans of those days who had any literacy at all. Thus, though these rights are foundational to our political state and in theory to all political states, it is because of a fundamental equality that stems directly from the Endower of our rights. Special classes of political entitlement were abolished by the Constitution, which allowed no king or any title of nobility.īut this is still not the most fundamental sense of “origins.” For the contention is that there is a source that endows us with our rights. In setting up this new system of government under which we live, equality was expressed in all citizens being equally sovereigns of the American state. “Origins” here is meant in a more fundamental way. To be clear, we are not overlooking that some are born into wealth and social standing, and others not. But with respect to our origins, there is equality. The end result of our lives will exhibit the widest range of differences. Our choices could similarly preserve and expand our liberty or undermine it, preserve and expand our wealth or squander it. It may be that by the choices we make, we could have a long life, or the opposite.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |