Q: Should July the Fourth be celebrated or is it chukos hagoyim?
Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l: Should you stop your learning to make a barbecue? No, there’s no reason for that.
But we hang out a flag from this synagogue on July the Fourth. Walk down Ocean Parkway, no flags. But here, yes.
I’ll tell you a story. In Vilna, Rav Yisroel Salanter once entered a big shul and it was the custom – it’s in the siddur – to say הנותן תשועה למלכים, a certain prayer for the king. Some siddurim still have that; a prayer for the President.
Does anybody ever say it? Nobody ever says it. It’s a formality. Just to bluff the goyim. If they should look in our prayer book, “See we’re praying for you.” But of course we never pray for them.
It’s not true. It’s a befeirushe Mishnah: הוי מתפלל בשלומו של מלכות – you must pray for the welfare of the kingdom, for the government. You have to pray for the government.
So Rav Yisrael Salanter once came into a big shul and the shamash instead of saying הנותן תשועה למלכים, he skipped it. They used to say it there in Russia but he skipped it. So Rav Yisroel went up to the bimah, he took a siddur and he recited it aloud for the public to hear. He himself did it. To let them know it’s an obligation – we have to pray for the government. We have to pray for the government.
So if so many meshugaim today are trying to desecrate the American flag; even the wicked Supreme Court has sanctioned the desecration of the flag—it’s not a crime any more—we have to show we appreciate Hashem’s gift to us. America is a great gift to us. We have to pray beshelomo shel malchus.
And so I say every Jew today should hang out the flag on the Fourth of July. Even just lehachis the liberals – to show the reshaim that we do appreciate America.
These fools are trying to tell us that someplace else is better. Here it’s no good. In Kent, in Ohio, the National Guard shot down four students some years ago when they protested. What a terrible fuss they made in America! But in Beijing, in China, they shot down two hundred students and nothing is said about it. What’s done by the Communists is perfectly all right. In America they were ruining the campus, these bums. They deserved to be shot down. No question about it. I sent a letter to the government and congratulated them for shooting them.
But what goes on someplace else, nothing to criticize. When the Russians marched into Hungary and took over a free land and made it a slave country of theirs, nobody said a word here.
But the Jews who were trying to fight to save themselves in Eretz Yisrael against the Arabs who want to kill Jewish men, women and children, so the New York Times is making the biggest fuss. Palestinian rights!
Why didn’t you make a fuss against the Russians? The Russians are occupying foreign countries. They’ve been doing it for years and years. They brought their tanks into Hungary, into Czechoslovakia and everywhere else. They’re threatening anybody who wants to be independent. So why is it that you raise a big mouth only against the State of Israel and not against what the Russians are doing?
The answer is the wickedness has no calculations. They do things only because of wickedness.
And therefore we should do the opposite. Now I’m not saying we should be Zionists, but absolutely when we see how the New York Times raises a hue and cry against Israel because of the injustice of the Palestinians, we should open our mouths against them.
And when the reshaim in America want to ruin this country, the least we can do is show we appreciate the great gift of America. I say we should hang out the flag, no question about it.
TAPE #792 (July 1990)
{Matzav.com}