Medina Shel Chesed

as it relates to uh just the whole story of Rabbi Dr. Bernard Iloi Be and Rabyak Eloi you know becomes a rabbi in you know early America and you know really just his whole story is a is a fascinating story. Sure. This years ago I had this to discuss uh Rabi Loi with Rabbi Binfeld many times. Rabi Binfel is actually the only person I know that has the original safer called which are the chas from Bilo. He has an original copy of the safer and he's someone that you know he had studied over the years. More recently I got a hold of uh a book. It's a doctoral dissertation that was written by Dr. Mosha Sherman. He's a history professor at Toro College and um he wrote his dissertation on RA Bernard Loey. I went through it cover to cover. It's fascinating on so many levels. By the way, there's a lot of other hakahic issues that Rabbi Elohi was at the forefront of all very worthy of going through is some fascinating discussions. The most famous one is the Muscoid. I was most famous by a mile. There are other very very important and other very uh prominent ones as well. But I was going through the book and I put some stickers by Samar a long time ago in case uh you know we ever got to the point where we were going to discuss Rabbi Loi as well. and preparing for the I went back and looked at the stickers. And one of the stickers was uh excerpt of a sermon that Rabbi Eloey gave in his Kahila at that point. He was in Philadelphia and this was in Kesh. It was in the year um it was in 1853. I'm sorry. It was printed in but this was in the year 1853 and he gave it on July 2nd. Now I tried tracking down to see if I can get my hands on the original uh article the draw. So it was actually printed in the accident. So for those that know the accident was Isaac Leer's uh Isaac Liser is one of the founding fathers of of American Jewish history. His story is an incredible story that is Hashem we have to tell at some point. But Isaac Liser, he had this publication, the accident where he was fighting ASCOA and he was fighting a lot of things that were going on. Either way, it's printed in the accident and thank the thanks to the help of Simon Springer who was gracious enough to join us uh now. So, uh Simon Springer who's doing incredible work trying to rehabilitate and bring back a lot of these old American rabbis that the world's forgotten of. And really, if you think about them, they planted so much of the seeds that, you know, ultimately Clay was able to grow on. You read their stories and some of them they had for it is mindboggling and it's such a but the bottom line is that Naki introduced me to Simon Springer and Simon Springer within a minute was able to get me a uh clear copy of the accident. This is in volume 11. It's number six. Had a feeling that uh he gave it on July 2nd. The excerpt looked really really good and I said it's 250 years old from the founding of this country and who knows what's going on in this Josha. So I'll just share with you a few excerpts freedom the gift of god that's the title of the sermon an address by the reverend Dr. Bernardi Loey delivered in English at the synagogue rode sh in Philadelphia on July 2nd which is the year 1853. The three-fold cord shall never be broken. The three-fold bond of liberty, equality and fraternity shall never be torn aunder. We read in our lesson of this day as follows. So he starts reading from the para. The par talks about how you have to treat the to convert properly. And he says it says it three times. And finally again three times the talks about how even the stranger who lives in our land is somebody that we have to be sensitive to. This announcement is distinctly contained the will of God that the land he had given to our ancestors should be a land where freedom was to dwell and righteousness to prevail. All the inhabitants of this glorious and first republic of the world should be equal before the Lord because he is the father of all. And the stranger who wished to live in the land of promise should enjoy the same rights and the same privileges as every one of the congregation of Israel. One right and one law shall be for you and for the stranger that dwells with you. Such was the basis upon which the new state of Israel was founded. And these words remind us of the day which is fast approaching for us. It is the 4th of July, the anniversary of the declaration of independence, the day in which the same words were pronounced by the illustrious founders of our glorious republic. One law and one right shall be for all men. Let us therefore my brethren today when we are assembled to celebrate the Sabbath day and to thank God for the creation of the world also thank him for the creation of this happy state of freedom and peace. Let us today commemorate this great brilliant and happy day which sealed the independence of the country we live in. Let us gratefully remember the day which ushered in the great event with which the happy history of our country commenced. honored and remembered forever be that day on which the father of the land of freedom first unshathed his sword to redeem his country from the iron yoke of foreign oppressors. He goes on and on. I'm going to skip a little bit. My friends, a poor speaker as I am, I shrink from an attempt to trace out all the happy circumstances which are closely connected with the 4th of July 1776. I shrink from the attempt to be a speaker of a great nation whose land is a blessing to mankind to whose sons no branch of knowledge is foreign and which although young claims for them in every kind of progress a place among the foremost. I feel myself still less able to describe the heroic deeds and disinterested services of men like Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. Men who will forever live in the hearts of their countrymen. men who will forever be remembered and venerated as lions in war, as meekness itself in peace, and as strong barriers of justice and truth against violence and fraud. Indeed, I shrink from the attempt to sketch a striking picture of all this. But all I can do is remind you that among the many millions of inhabitants of this happy land, none should solemnize this day with more grateful feelings than the Jews. On this day, we should recall in all their intensity emotions which the oppressed, the weak and homeless feel on finding a powerful protector and a hospitable asylum. On this day, you should gratefully recollect that is in this great and happy day which fully compensated us for all the dark deeds of blood, for all the glouing menacles of slavery, for all acts of oppression and tyranny which despoted governments had for ages inflicted upon us. And lastly, this day should be put us in mind that we live no more in the lands where bigots rage and fanatics rave, where bigotry traces out the march of its persecution and footsteps of blood and superstition. Not bad for someone whose first language is not English, by the way. And superstition employs all its terrors to nerve the arm of the tyrant. We live no more in the lands where the spotic oppressors prohibit upon pain of death the practice of our religion. No, we live now on freedom soil. and this day has fulfilled the prophecy. I will carry you upon eagle's wings. The powerful eagle of America beers us upon his protected wings. Religious liberty is given to us. Let us therefore use it only in such a way that it may make us worthy of the title of free men of the freeborn sons of Israel. Only in this way can we duly appreciate the precious legacy which the illustrious founders of this republic bequeath to us. And may the great father on high who dwells in this house give us his blessing. May he bless us father and all the inhabitants of this happy land with liberty, peace and brotherly love that our last generation may still gratefully commemorate the 4th of July and with a joyful heart proclaim. This is the day which God has made. Let us be glad and rejoice thereon. Now, this is a rabbi speaking to a kahila in Philadelphia 1853. And he's trying to get the to realize what they have, the gift that akadesh bar gave them that 250 years later, although we're hanging on for dear life, we still have. And really if you go through the sermons of the great rabbis that were the founding fathers of this country and by the way I don't mean the aliyah of the late 19th century early 20th century when millions of Jews immigrated from Europe and we don't mean you know post world war ii when you had like the and other mashim that that really really brought to America but go back to the beginning of time where there were thousands of Jews and then at some point tens of thousands of Jews that were living in the country full stop and obviously the United States of America being a Protestant country so obviously to be a Jew and it was not an easy thing to do and they fought and then when the Huska came in the 1850s they fought tooth and nail they fought tooth and nail like Rabbi Geishim Satishius who if you know you know he's the rabbi of the republican uh of the revolutionary war who we mentioned earlier Abraham Rice who's the preca who's a rabbi in the 1840s 1850s in Baltimore. Morris Rafal who was a rabbi in New York City you know we mentioned Dr. Bernardi Loi their unsung heroes the mysterious nephesh they had to plant the earliest seeds this was like the foundation beneath the foundation but at the end of the day when Jews immigrated to America in the 19th century as much as it was to be a yid but there was an orthodox Jewish infra yeah yeah maybe there weren't schools it wasn't perfect we all know that but at the same time there was a lot of infrastructure and when you read their stories and you read the fight that they fought it's absolutely incredible and one of the themes that I've seen in all these sermons not just from Rabi Loi some of the other Rabbon we mentioned and others as well is that they were trying to express to their congregants and tried to spin what was going on in America you know for the good on the one hand America was was a dangerous place the freedom came with a lot of sakono but at the same time it came with a lot of opportunity because for the first time almost in forever the Jew was bound by the first amendment which is religious of freedom and if he wanted to practice his religion and to be a yid it was something that he was very much allowed to do. And these Rabanim in their sermons would explain to the you don't realize what you have. You don't understand what your brethren in Europe are dealing with. YOU DON'T REALIZE WHAT A GIFT THAT you were given. And July 4th was a symbol for the Jew as religious freedom. We don't appreciate it so much today because there's religious freedom pretty much in the entire world. But in a world where there was no religious freedom, July 4th was a day, it was a symbol of religious freedom. And that's very much the spirit of this incredible epic sermon. that Rabbi Loi gave just as a a postcript. How did Rabi Loy's story end? So he passed away on June 20th in the year 18 71. Reading from Dr. Sherman's book, Elo's life was brought to an untimely end through a sudden violent accident. On June 20th, 1871, he traveled to nearby Lebanon. So this is Lebanon, Ohio, in order to pay his taxes while riding home with his youngest son. The axle of his buggy broke off, throwing him and his son to the ground. The child was not hurt and immediately ran for assistance. Elohi, however, was taken to a nearby residence of a friend where several physicians attended his injuries. The fall had apparently dislocated a vertebrae near the neck, causing him near total paralysis. The following day, Wednesday, June 21st, 1871, he expired after 24 hours of intense pain. He passed away on Gimmel Tamas of the year 1871. And in a very sad ironic twist, a man whose legacy is known from the Muscovi duck, a sugotraus. He died from a dislocated vertebrae. He died from one of the more prominent traus that I mentioned, the sugia of autrafus. Either way, D vice be cavern.