The Bell and the Shofar
The words inscribed on the liberty bell are found in substance in the book of Leviticus: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout the Land and to All the Inhabitants Thereof” The verse in its context echoes differently. The call out for liberty in the Torah is specific: manumission of those who are enslaved, forgiveness of debts, return to ancestral property and sabbatical from working the land. The instrument at hand is not a bell but a shofar.
The Liberty Bell declares that the United States of America is a land where freedom rings. Where the founders cast the political philosophy of natural rights and popular sovereignty into a the mold of a democratic republic and showed the world that the Divine Right of Kings had given way to the principles of independence and democracy. As we well know, at the time the bell first rang (apocryphally) to summon the people to hear the Declaration read, the work was far from complete. As it was almost two centuries later when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded his Dream with a riff on the Bell of Freedom:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And we are charged today with making sure that the bell rings to herald the right of each person to live and freely express themselves without fear of reprisal.
The Shofar calls from a different place. The Shofar is blown with human breath but it cries in a voice that is Eternal. Without words the shofar speaks G*d’s command to release those who are bound by servitude or debt. Those who hear the Shofar are propelled into action. The Shofar brings urgency and purpose. In the words of Isaiah: Lift up your voice like a Shofar…Unlock fetters of wickedness, untie the cords of the yoke, let the oppressed go free.
The Bell proclaims our Independence and commitment to a society in which all are free. The Shofar demands that we make it so. The Bell rings to celebrate freedom. The Shofar sounds to awaken it.