🡄 (Previous category) :: 📁 🇺🇸 Flag Day (June 14)

📁 🇺🇸 Labor Day (1st Monday of September) :: (Next Category) 🡆

🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th)

🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th)

This is an archive of prayers composed for or relevant to Independence Day, a civic day in the United States celebrated on July 4th.

Click here to contribute a prayer you have written, or a transcription and translation of an existing prayer.

Resources filtered by TAG: “liberty” (clear filter)

Sorted Chronologically (old to new). Sort most recent first?

💬 “A Parable Against Persecution,” a pseudepigraphal text written by Benjamin Franklin (1755)

Written by future founding father Benjamin Franklin in 1755, “A Parable Against Persecution,” also known as “the 51st Chapter [of Genesis],” is an example of what is often called ‘pseudo-biblicism,’ a trend from the 1740s to the mid-19th century of writing modern events in the already-archaic style of the King James Bible. More strictly, “A Parable Against Persecution” is an example of pseudepigrapha in that it is meant to be read as part of the book of Genesis, telling a story of Abraham facing a non-coreligionist, acting rashly, and learning a lesson about religious tolerance. Already in 1755 we can see Franklin’s radically liberal religious views. . . .

Categories: Midrash Aggadah, Parashat Vayera, Modern Miscellany, 🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th)

Tags: 18th century C.E., 56th century A.M., the Enlightenment, Hebrew translation, interfaith tolerance, liberty, pseudepigrapha, tolerance and intolerance, tolerance of difference

Contributor(s): Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

Opening prayer for the Ceremonies at the Site of the Statue of Religious Liberty by the Independent Order of B’nai Brith, by Rabbi Sabato Morais (5 July 1875)

This was the opening prayer offered by Rabbi Sabato Morais at the “Ceremonies at the Site of the Statue of Religious Liberty by the Independent Order of B’nai Berith” for the Celebration of the Ninety-Ninth Anniversary of American Independence in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, July 5th, 1875 and published in a booklet containing the same. The site of the ceremonies was “the Walnut Street Railway, near the Centennial grounds.” The statue, “Religious Liberty,” was commissioned by B’nai B’rith and dedicated “to the people of the United States” as an expression of support for the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. It was created by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a B’nai B’rith member and the first American Jewish sculptor to gain international prominence. . . .

Categories: 🇺🇸 Independence Day (July 4th)

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, dedications and consecrations, English vernacular prayer, liberty, statues of liberty, United States centennial

Contributor(s): Sabato Morais and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/index.php?cat=2796

Associated Image:

a still frame (01:02:54) of the everyday evening Fourth of July Parade and Picnic in Topeka Downunder from the film adaptation of Harlan Ellison's post-apocalyptic tale: A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute any information in the description of this archive page to the Open Siddur Project (<https://opensiddur.org>).
Clearly indicate the date you accessed this page and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this archive: <https://opensiddur.org/index.php?cat=2796>.
Indicate that the original page was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this page in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the CC BY-SA license.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed on this page and in these shared works represents the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of volunteer contributors, or its institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-commercial, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17

Pocket Reddit Facebook Bluesky Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email