America needs a new religious awakening

This year's Jewish high holidays can help America overcome current divisions, hatreds, distrust, incivilities, lawlessness, and violence.

Of all the disciplines and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Joseph Lieberman is chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). He was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000 and a U.S. senator from Connecticut, 1989-2013.

During the Ten Days of Repentance, Jews are called to consider their behavior during the preceding year and to repent for the occasions when we have acted wrongly which is to say outside the code of law and values that the Bible requires of us. Repentance must of course lead to a commitment to do better in the year ahead. At the heart of the process of repentance and reform, as individuals and as a community, is returning home to our faith in the God of Creation and the God of History. First, by returning to our appreciation of God who created the world culminating in the creation of humans, we are reminded that God’s creation ties us together in one family as brothers and sisters and that we should treat each other that way. That is not the norm in America today.

We are also called on to return to an appreciation of God who entered history to give us the Ten Commandments and all the values that flowed from them. For Christianity and Islam, the same is true of the coming of Jesus and the Prophet Mohammed and the values for living each brought to the world. In these three great monotheistic religions, one of the most effective motivators of good behavior is what Jews call fear of heaven or awe of God. The faithful are moved to behave in a way that serves God, that walks in God’s way. Over the centuries, those ennobling moral standards enabled enormous numbers of people to overcome the natural human temptation to act immorally, and worse.