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Yeah. Mm. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. Most Americans know that the roots of our liberty are often traced to Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Montesquieu, and Jefferson, or to the New Testament and the Christian ideas and ideals about morality that helped shape Western civilization. Far fewer people know about the Old Testament, the Jewish roots of American liberty, but they should.
Here's Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern, co-author of the phenomenal book, Jewish Roots of American Liberty. With the story of Daniel. Take it away, Stuart. There's a fascinating figure who has long represented to Americans courage in the face of fear.
Dang. Daniel's biblical tale is often overlooked, but it's strikingly inspiring. Its incredible narrative of unabashed faith in the face of a fearsome. Foe.
So fearsome in fact that the foe was animalistic. But we'll get to that in a little bit. Daniel was a young Judean, a young Jewish man. Taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar around a decade before the first temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC. In captivity in the courts of Babylon, He interpreted dreams for the monarch.
He was rewarded by being given royal robes and promoted to a high position in the Babylonian government. And he saw his three fellow Israelite friends also ripped from their homes in Judea and placed in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. Survived being thrown into a fiery furnace after they refused to bow down to a pagan idol. Most famously, of course, Daniel had a certain run-in with nature's. Apex predator.
Now it's that particular tale that has found a surprisingly large fan base throughout American political history and across both sides of the political aisle. Daniel was thrown into a lion's den because he prayed to the one true God facing the holy city of Jerusalem.
Now this, mind you, violated the law in ancient Babylon because the king in Persia had declared that one could only pray to the king himself. Not God. This law prohibiting praying to anyone but the king had been passed by a group of nefarious palace officials looking to conspire against Daniel, their Hebrew colleague, who dared to be different. Caught red-handed, praying to his ancestral God, Daniel was thrown into a den of lions.
Now the king of Persia, who actually liked Daniel, Was very worried over the course of the night that Daniel had been ripped to shreds by these ravenous beasts. And yet when the king peeked over the side of this lion's den, come morning, he saw that Daniel was alive and well. The lions had cowered before the faith of this man of ancient Italy.
Now, this story of incredible fortitude. In the face of ferocious animals, has served to inspire the American experiment since its earliest days. In 1775, preacher David Jones of the city of Philadelphia tried to stir his congregation toward the cause of rebellion against the oppressive British. And he, being a good Christian, had to mention, of course, that when Paul in the New Testament says one should be subject to higher power, It could not have meant that we must be loyal to monarchs if those monarchs have unjust, oppressive policies. And to cite an example of standing up in the face of unjust policies, Jones argued as follows.
We cannot suppose either that this text enjoins absolute submission to all law, which may be made in a land. For some are so wicked, oppressive, and unjust in their nature and tendency that the best of men have thought it their indispensable duty to disobey them. You may well remember that Nebuchadnezzar made it a certain law that all nations in his empire should on pain of death worship his golden image. Was it the duty of his subject to obey or not? Jones continued.
Remember also, when Darius king of Persia made a statue that no man should petition, either God or man save himself, for thirty days. Daniel refused obedience unto the decree because it was Unrighteous. Yeah. In other words, this revolutionary era preacher saw in the prism of Daniel the model of standing upright and unafraid in the face of an oppressive monarch. teaching what we call nowadays civil disobedience.
Standing strong for what you believe is right and what is required of you by God, even if the human beings in charge are trying to be tyrannical and force you to do otherwise.
Now, Daniel stuck around through the cause of abolition. Um There was a well-known slave spiritual that used the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den as a metaphor for delivery from slavery and injustice. And it began, Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel? And why not every man? This was something sung by slaves in cottonfields aspiring for the righteous deliverance that Daniel merited.
Frederick Douglass, in chapter 11 of his autobiography, writes that he felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions. Douglas, of course, had escaped slavery to become a renowned orator and a dear friend of none other than President Abraham Lincoln himself. he saw in his own story salvation that mirrored that of Daniel. And in October 1864, Sojorner Truth, another escaped slave, turned abolitionist, thought of the story of Daniel while visiting President Lincoln.
Sojourner Truth had never learned to read or write, but she was a devoted student of the Bible for her entire life. and she saw in the Great Emancipator shades of Babylon's great visionary. I said to him, Mr. President, when you first took your seat, I feared you would be torn to pieces. For I likened you unto Daniel, who is thrown into the lion's den.
If the lions did not tear you into pieces, I knew that it would be God that had saved you. And I said if he spared me, I would see you before the four years expired. And he has done so. And now I am here to see you for myself. In other words, Truth saw the miraculous survival of Daniel as embodied in the survival and the success of Lincoln's fight against the scourge of slavery.
This teaches us so much about how Americans have imagined political courage. They have seen in their aspiration for America to fulfill its promised ideals. of equality and dignity for all its citizens. the equality and dignity that Daniel demanded by insisting on praying to the one true God even under the penalty of death. Mm.
Martin Luther King Jr., in his letter from a Birmingham jail, also invoked Daniel's three friends. Of course, there's nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience, he said about his own cause of righteousness. It was seen, he continued sublimely, in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. In other words, Reverend King II saw in Daniel a dynamic example of courage under fright and fear and enemies frothing at the mouth for a righteous cause to be defeated. Uh Now, Daniel has continued to wander through not only the lion's den, but the halls of power of the United States for decades, even onto yesterday's headlines.
So a few decades ago, Democratic Congressman Jim Wright, who would go on to become Speaker of the House under President Reagan, wrote in his memoirs of seeing that Catholic President JFK address a powerful council of Methodist bishops. I made a statement afterwards, he recounted, that Kennedy reminded me of Daniel in the lion's den. A few of my constituents got angry at me, accusing me of comparing Protestant ministers to lions. They were just looking for something to get shook up about. I'm glad I lived during the presidency of John F.
Kennedy. It was a time when a man could have heroes. There's a bit of a danger in individuals casting themselves as Daniel. We know the original biblical hero stood up in the face of objective tyranny, oppression, and ferocious animals, literally. But perhaps, while many politicians might have felt the same, we shouldn't be so quick to see those who oppose our opinions, our politics, our beliefs and our values as ferocious, carnivorous lions.
Perhaps we should aspire to see them, not as foes, but as friends who are just a little bit different. Perhaps they don't want to devour us, but they just want to debate us. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern, his book, The Jewish Roots of American Liberty.
And my goodness, this idea of Daniel epitomizing courage in the face of fear, not just for Christians, we see it in the lives of people as divergent as Sojourner Truth. Martin Luther King, and Frederick Douglass. The story of Daniel. Here on our American stories. That feeling when you check your bank account and your paychecks days away.
And of course, your calendar's all. Good news! With Chase Secure Banking, your direct deposit hits your bank account up to two days faster.
So when your friends are like, and your bills go, you have the peace your deposit brings. And the best part, there's no monthly service fee for 17 to 24-year-olds. Thanks to Chase Secure Banking. For Chase Secure Checking only, eligible direct deposits may be credited up to two business days early, depending on when the payer submits the transaction. Member FDIC.
Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage.
Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S.
US and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's get real about skincancer.com.
Okay. You've watched racing.
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Ready to race? Earn your competition license and learn real wheel-to-wheel racecraft. Stop watching, start driving. Go to racevir.com. That's racevir.com.
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