"MM- THE JEWS & USA 250!” Monday Motivation w.Rabbi Garfinkel 7-6-26

We have something unbelievable, and I'm not sure people realize the incredible link between Jewish values and the founding of America.

Because we have to understand that America was founded by the Puritans.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was the founding pilgrims, right, of America.

And I'm going to be quoting from a couple of articles.

One is by Rabbi Ken Spiro, The Jewish Impact on the Founding of America.

And also a very wonderful article by Rabbi Ephraim Goldberg that also appeared on Eish.com about America today.

American Jews and 250 years.

So here we go.

So from Rabbi Ken Spears article, he says something unbelievable.

He says the Puritans viewed their emigration from England as a virtual reenactment of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

To them, England was Egypt.

The king was Pharaoh.

The Atlantic Ocean was the Red Sea.

America was the land of Israel.

And the Indians were the ancient Canaanites.

They were the new Israelites.

The pilgrims, the Puritans, were the new Israelites entering into a new covenant with God in a new promised land.

And it is absolutely unbelievable how how much the Puritans based their journey and their mission on biblical values.

In fact, the Puritans wanted to get rid of any English common law in America and they wanted just to have biblical law.

The downside, and many times they did, the downside of that, and this is a fascinating discussion for a different time, is that they only had the written law.

They did not have the oral law.

And when you have only the written law in your Bible, in the hotel bed stand, and you just read the Bible, you're going to come up with many mistakes and many times much more severe and strict.

than if one would have the oral law.

Now, one clear example of this was that the Puritans had the whole Salem witch trials.

And it says in the Torah that a witch should be burned.