Before there was an eagle clutching arrows and an olive branch, there was Moses and the Exodus from Egypt.

On July 2, 1776, immediately after the Continental Congress voted to declare independence, its members appointed a committee to create a seal for the new United States. Two of the committee’s least religiously minded members, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, proposed images of the Israelites in the Bible, one of which features them crossing the Red Sea as Pharaoh’s army disappeared beneath the waters. Surrounding this scene are the words, “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

While this design was not adopted, the instinct behind it was revealing. At the birth of the American republic, the founders looked to the Exodus story to help them imagine what freedom demanded of a new nation.

Two hundred fifty years later, perhaps it is time to draw from that well again.

As America celebrates its 250th anniversary this weekend, communities across the country will gather for parades, concerts, fireworks and historical commemorations. Despite the societal divides and political tensions surrounding this milestone, these celebrations matter.

Shared rituals bind a people together and remind us of the ideals that first inspired the American experiment. Among my formative American experiences 50 years ago were watching CBS’s “Bicentennial Minutes,” collecting commemorative quarters and attending the local July Fourth parade in Needham, Mass., a town established more than 50 years before the American Revolution began just 10 miles away.

But Jewish tradition teaches that anniversaries can do something more remarkable. We do not simply remember our defining moments. We use them to shape the next generation.

Every year at the Passover Seder, we retell the story of the Exodus. The Haggadah asks questions, invites debate, welcomes multiple voices and challenges every participant to see themselves as participants in the story, as if they had personally left Egypt. Its purpose is not to live in history, but to learn from it and prepare for what comes next.

Memory becomes responsibility, and the past becomes a guide for the future.

That may be Judaism’s greatest civic contribution to this American moment.

America’s 250th anniversary should not become the closing ceremony for the nation’s first 250 years. It should become the opening installment for its next chapters. That requires more than celebration. It requires the intentional formation of civic identity and character.

The founders understood that a constitutional republic depends upon citizens capable of sustaining it. President Ronald Reagan captured the responsibility of transmitting freedom to the next generation: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It has to be fought for and defended by each generation.” Rights endure only when they are matched by responsibility. Freedom survives only when each generation chooses to renew it.

The federal government’s proposal for a celebratory Shabbat this past May acknowledged the extraordinary relationship between the Jewish people and the United States. And yet the most natural time for American Jewish communities to mark this milestone is this coming Shabbat, which coincides with the 250th anniversary.

There are several meaningful ways to mark this moment. Reading the Declaration of Independence aloud allows us to encounter a foundational work of the American civic canon anew. By examining both its lofty ideals and the grievances that helped precipitate a war, we might ask not only what its authors meant, but what their words demand of us today.

Civic Spirit’s America@250 Seder invites families, communities and congregations to gather around the table to understand the pillars of our democracy and the enterprise of self-government. To go deeper into the Declaration, Pardes and Civic Spirit partnered to create the “Talmud of America.” This project brings America’s founding documents into conversation with Jewish texts to explore enduring questions of leadership, power, justice, dissent, compromise and communal responsibility.

This summer, Jewish camps are also using new resources to mark this national milestone. Through Civic Spirit’s America@250 initiative, with funding from the Jack and Goldie Wolfe Miller Family Foundation, campers and counselors are exploring freedom, civil rights and civic responsibility in the most dynamic way that experiential education can offer. In fact, I am writing this piece at Camp Ramah Wisconsin, which is training its staff to elevate the Semiquincentennial to be a once-in-a-generation experience for its community. This work is about more than preventing the academic “summer slide.” It’s about preparing young Jews to return home with the knowledge, confidence and sense of belonging they will need to navigate contemporary challenges to both American democracy and American Jewish identity.

The Semiquincentennial offers an opportunity to take stock not only of American civic education, but also of the place and responsibilities of the American Jewish community. The increasing numbers of Jewish day schools and communal leaders participating in civic education professional development reflects a growing recognition that citizenship is not simply something we inherit. It must be taught, cultivated and intentionally practiced. There is also a renewed recognition that the strength of American Jewish life is inseparable from the health of American democracy. Like every minority community, American Jews flourish when democratic institutions are strong, rights are protected and citizens understand their responsibilities to one another.

This work does not take place only in voting booths and jury boxes. It begins in schools, where founding documents are read, analyzed and debated. It brews over a cup of coffee (not tea on this particular anniversary) when neighbors identify shared communal challenges they can address together, and it finds expression around campfires and our Shabbat tables this weekend.

The founders turned to the Israelites as they imagined a new republic. They saw something in Jewish tradition that shaped their own aspirations for what they might create then and we can build together today.

The measure of this anniversary will not be the brilliance of the fireworks or the number of commemorative events we host. It will be whether America emerges from its 250th birthday with a renewed commitment to forming citizens who can carry the American experiment forward.

With purpose, passion and persistence, we can certainly cultivate a more perfect moment for our country.

Rabbi Charles E. Savenor is the executive director of Civic Spirit. Rabbi Savenor is a recipient of the 2026 Covenant Foundation’s Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.