Local opinion: A nation still in the making

This past month, I traveled to Washington, D.C. for a conference. Between sessions, I spent a few hours walking the streets of the nation's capital. Everywhere I looked, preparations for America's 250th birthday were underway.

Banners were draped across the front of government buildings. Museums had special exhibits either on display or in the works. Bookstores had designated sections, and gift shops were stocked with America 250 mugs, water bottles and souvenirs.

As I reached the Lincoln Memorial, I found access to it somewhat limited. Fences and barricades blocked off some areas as workers set up stages and tested sound systems for the celebrations. The city itself felt unfinished, preparing for celebrations still weeks away.

For a moment, I felt disappointed that I would miss the actual Fourth of July festivities. But upon reflection, I realized I had experienced something even more fitting: a nation still in the making.

In the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, the nation's Founding Fathers opened with an aspiration: "to form a more perfect Union."

That phrase has always fascinated me. It suggests that America was never intended to be a finished project. The Founding Fathers envisioned a nation continually striving to better embody its highest ideals. The goal was not perfection, but progress.

That's why seeing Washington under construction felt so fitting. The city itself embodied the very ideal expressed in the Constitution.

That same idea followed me into the Lincoln Memorial. Engraved on its wall are the closing words of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, delivered only 41 days before his assassination.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds..."

Even as the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lincoln understood that America's greatest task still lay ahead. The nation would have to heal, rebuild, and continue striving toward the ideals on which it was founded.

That aspiration echoes a deeply Jewish idea.

Judaism teaches that G-d intentionally left creation unfinished. The concept of Tikkun Olam, "repairing the world," flows from that idea. The Midrash illustrates this with simple examples: grain must become bread and flax must become clothing. Human beings were created not merely to inhabit the world, but to become G-d's partners in completing it through honest work, acts of kindness, justice, and devotion.

Neither America nor the world arrives fully complete. Both ask something of us to keep building, repairing, and improving what remains unfinished.

That may be why the preparations in Washington stayed with me. The fences and unfinished displays were not distractions from the celebration; they were part of it. They embodied the very spirit the anniversary commemorates.

The 250th anniversary is as much about what remains to be done in 2026 as it is about what happened in 1776. As the sage Rabbi Tarfon taught (Avot 2:16), "It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but neither are you free to desist from it." Perhaps the most fitting way to celebrate America's 250th birthday is to recommit ourselves to the work of building a more perfect Union.