Alan Weiner

B.S., M.S.E., C.H.T., D.D.
Speaker, Author, Engineer, Consultant,  Inventor, Clinical Hypnotherapist

Sabbath on the Fourth of July - 2014

Is our birthright of freedom a hidden killer?

On the 4th of July we celebrate the freedom of our country: our freedom from the oppressive British Empire. We then, thanks to the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the constitution, celebrate our freedom as individuals.

However, individual freedom can be bad for your health. It can certainly lead to stress. ​Recently a friend told me a story. Three days into her marriage she and her husband were on a precipice overlooking the Grand Canyon. An avid photographer, the guy ducked under the safety rail and crawled to where he could hold his camera out for a straight down picture. She shouted to him that after three days she was not ready to be a widow. Afterward he said, “I felt perfectly safe. What were you afraid of?” She replied, “I am afraid of stupidity.”

Freedom of action without knowledge can lead to a dangerous situation. However, freedom of mind can open a door to distancing ourselves from our past, thinking creatively, gaining new insights, and, perhaps, achieving even more freedom.

​Most Jews celebrate freedom from slavery while living lives of limited freedom. I do not quite have the freedom to skip the Sabbath service without a twinge of regret. But this is the human condition. I can choose to modify my individual freedom by observing the 10 commandments. If I make this choice consciously in each moment, I can actually deepen my experience of freedom.

Anarchy leads to disaster. Clearly too much freedom is deadly to both individuals and to society. Too little freedom makes life safe but deadly boring. To find the knife edge of “just right” requires taking freedom to the next level, where we engage the greater community and become passionate freedom fighters.

Why is it important to fight for other people’s freedom? Because, in the process of helping others we get to confront the real and perhaps important limitations on our own freedom.

Although no other person on the planet is just like us, we all tend to unconsciously think that everyone else, deep down, is really exactly like us. This preconception blocks our vision. The path to true freedom lies in acceptance:

  • I am personally proud to be a member of a community that actively supported the Pride Parade in San Francisco last weekend.
  • I accept the bonds of gravity for my body and this acceptance lets my mind float free.•    I accept the rules of society and I, as most of you, follow the laws as laid down. In so doing, I find freedom from the fears inherent in a lawless society.


    In my varied past I have had occasion to befriend people on the lawless fringes of society. They live constantly in fear. Just as they could and might steal from others, anyone they know could and would steal from them. And, in addition, the police would like to disrupt their life-style and send them back to jail. No matter what the temporary level of their apparent success, their long term prospects are bleak and the joy of any moment is unhealthily drowned in healthy paranoia.

    ​The people I knew in this situation eventually felt the need to hide their anxiety in drugs. This was, not surprisingly, a path to quick disaster.


Our ancestors easily distinguished between freedom and slavery in a simpler world. We try to distinguish between freedom of action and freedom of opportunity in a relatively complex world. It is nice to have a guidebook on this knife-edge path of freedom. That is where the 10 amendments and 10 commandments come in, balancing how our society will treat us and how we will treat others.

Of note tonight is the commandment to honor the Sabbath; to provide a separation between this special day and the rest of the week. Choosing this activity gives each of us a chance to rest, recover and find peace, remembering what in life is worth cherishing and celebrating. 

​Tonight we can take a moment to reflect on the wonder of the freedom we have in this time and place. As Jews we celebrate our liberation from the yoke of slavery several thousand years ago and the resultant birth of the community that gave rise to the Jewish nation; our spiritual nation; our spiritual home. 

Tonight we celebrate the birth of America; our temporal nation; our temporal home. In addition, we celebrate our individual freedom as Americans, and we celebrate our freedom to live lives as Jews in America. 

​With this in mind, we will move on to conclude the service, sing a song in calibration, have a quick nosh, and we will all be free to go and watch some fireworks...

Everybody hug your family members close for our final blessing:

Dear G-d, in the moments of this holy Sabbath and the moments of the days and weeks that follow, let each of us grow in our awareness and appreciation of our increasing vibrant good health, our increasing and already great wealth, and our expanding humble wisdom.

Let each of us come to gratefully accept and cherish our lives of abundance; our lives full of learning, creativity, and joy; our lives spiced by adversity, challenge, and redemption.

​May our hearts open inward and behold Your Presence within our inner light, then turn outward to open and behold the light within our family, our friends, our neighbors, the stranger on the street, and even the stranger in foreign lands. As we all strive together to heal the world.

And let us all say, Amen.