God does bless America

Since July 4, 2025, our country has been preparing for this coming July 4, 2026, when we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Flags were everywhere for Memorial Day, and I can only imagine all the bunting, patriotic decorations and community commemorations as we approach July 4.

Since this article is a bit early for July 4, I want to focus on a story about a song and a person synonymous with patriotism and America, though it may seem unusual to select an American patriotic song as the subject of my article on faith in the Lowcountry. The song is not “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” but “God Bless America,” a song written by a Russian immigrant to honor his adopted country.

Many Americans first came to know the song through singer Kate Smith. In one memorable performance, she stood statuesque and introduced the song while behind her stood row upon row of proud, clean-cut young Americans wearing the uniforms of the various military services. They added their voices and energy, marching, marching, marching into formation as a huge flag dropped behind them. Listening to Kate Smith and all those soldiers singing the people’s choice for a national anthem, written by that Russian Jewish immigrant, Irving Berlin, whose family came to America seeking a new life — a life they found on the streets of New York City’s Lower East Side — one heard a very American song telling a very American story: the story of many Americans whose families began their lives as immigrants, traveling from scores of countries seeking the elusive American promise of freedom and opportunity.

“God Bless America, land that I love, stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above.” Irving Berlin meant those words when he wrote them. It was World War I, and all that America stood for was being challenged by large and powerful imperial nations spreading their hegemony over the natural resources, territory and people of the world. But soon after he wrote it, the Armistice was signed and the war was over. The feared Central Powers had been defeated, and Irving Berlin’s song was put in a drawer for 20 years.

Then, only 20 years later, war clouds gathered again, and beloved entertainer Kate Smith introduced the song that Americans would sing proudly. The world outside America was at war, fighting hated, demonic enemies who believed they could march into any country they desired to gain Lebensraum, or living space. Every place and every person was threatened by the ambitions and hateful vision of those despotic leaders.

“God Bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her.” Though we are living in a difficult and challenging time as our nation approaches its 250th anniversary, I believe in those words. We need God’s blessings for our country: our citizens, our leaders, our military, our rich and poor, our Black, yellow, brown and white Americans, our rural and urban communities, our Jews and Christians, our Muslims and Hindus, our Buddhists and people of all faiths. God also needs to bless those with no faith, because all of us are citizens of this great land.

“Stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above.” While we ask God to guide our nation, we must also make our feelings and opinions known and serve, as the song suggests, as guides to our elected officials. Yet, in these days just a few weeks before Independence Day, what does that heavenly light illuminate? We see a country deeply divided, without consensus on what is best for our nation, its citizens or its role in the world, and we see national leadership that is equally divided. We see an America frightened by events around the world, political divisiveness, war and hunger, antisemitism and racism, extremism and hate.

Yet there is another part of that song, the introduction before the far more familiar chorus, less well known, perhaps, but equally important:

“While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free.
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer:”

Dear God, as we commemorate the anniversary of the birth of our nation, bless America, this land that we love. Stand beside all of us. Guide our leaders and our citizens through this nightlike doubt and fear with your insight and wisdom, like the light from above. From every corner of our land — the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, the prairies of the American heartland, and the beaches from Oahu to the tidewaters of South Carolina — bless us, O God, every person, every family and every home. Amen.

Rabbi Ken Kanter currently serves the local Jewish congregation at the Temple Oseh Shalom in Bluffton, SC.