This article by Richard Haass is published by The Atlantic. Here is an excerpt:
Throughout my career studying and practicing American foreign policy, I’ve frequently been asked, What keeps you up at night? Is it China? Russia? Terrorism? Climate change? Another pandemic? While these issues all demand our attention, in recent years, I have found myself saying something else: The most urgent threat to American security and stability stems not from abroad but from within, from political divisions that jeopardize the future of American democracy and even the United States itself.
The obvious follow-up question is what to do about it. My answer draws inspiration from the holiday of Passover, when Jews celebrate their liberation from ancient Egypt. The annual retelling of the Exodus story is inspired by a command in the Bible: “And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: It is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.” Jews are instructed to make sure that every generation understands both what it means to be a Jew and what being a Jew requires. Only through recounting their history have they been able to preserve their identity, despite millennia of persecution and, until recently, not having a homeland.
Passover offers everyone, not just Jews, an important lesson: No group of people should assume that its identity will be automatically inherited by the next generation. For a people to understand and appreciate its collective identity is a matter of teaching, not biology. This is no less true for nations than for religious communities.
Read the full article here.
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