Daniel and the Jewish Roots of American Liberty

On this episode of Our American Stories, from the American Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement, the biblical prophet Daniel has served as an enduring American symbol of courage in the face of unjust authority. His refusal to abandon his faith, even when threatened with the lions' den, offered Americans a powerful example of standing firm when human laws conflicted with a higher moral law.

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern, co-author of The Jewish Roots of American Liberty, shares how Daniel's story inspired a Revolutionary-era preacher challenging British rule, enslaved Americans longing for freedom, and the abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. Generations later, Martin Luther King Jr. drew on the story of Daniel's fellow exiles to defend civil disobedience during the Civil Rights Movement.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories.
Most Americans know that the roots of our liberty are
often traced to Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Montesquieu, and Jefferson,
or to the New Testament and the Christian ideas and
ideals about morality that helped shape Western civilization. Far fewer
people know about the Old Testament, the Jewish roots of

(00:32):
American liberty, but they should. Here's Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern,
co-author of the phenomenal book, Jewish Roots of American Liberty,
with the story of Daniel. Take it away, Stuart.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
There's a fascinating figure who has long represented to Americans
courage in the face of fear, Daniel. Daniel's biblical tale
is often overlooked, but it's strikingly inspiring. It's incredible narrative
of unabashed faith in the face of a fearsome foe.

(01:08):
So fearsome, in fact, that the foe was animalistic. But
we'll get to that in a little bit. Daniel was
a young Judean, a young Jewish man, taken captive by
Nebuchadnezzar around a decade before the first temple in Jerusalem
was destroyed in 586 BC. In captivity in the courts

(01:30):
of Babylon, he interpreted dreams for the monarch. He was
rewarded by being given royal robes, and promoted to a
high position in the Babylonian government. And he saw his
three fellow Israelite friends, also ripped from their homes in
Judea and placed in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, survive being
thrown into a fiery furnace after they refused to bow

(01:51):
down to a pagan idol. Most famously, of course, Daniel
had a certain run-in with nature's apex predator. Now it's
that particular retell, that has found a surprisingly large fan
base throughout American political history and across both sides of
the political aisle. Daniel was thrown into a lion's den

(02:12):
because he prayed to the one true God facing the
holy city of Jerusalem. Now this, mind you, violated the
law in ancient Babylon because the king in Persia had
declared that one could only pray to the king himself,
not God. This law prohibiting praying to anyone but the
king had been passed by a group of nefarious palace
officials looking to conspire against Daniel, their Hebrew colleague, who

(02:36):
dared to be different. Caught red-handed, praying to his ancestral god,
Daniel was thrown into a den of lions. Now, the
king of Persia, who actually liked Daniel, was very worried
over the course of the night that Daniel had been
ripped to shreds by these ravenous beasts. And yet, when
the king peeked over the side of this lion's den,

(02:58):
come morning... he saw that Daniel was alive and well.
The lions had cowered before the faith of this man
of ancient Israel. Now this story of incredible fortitude in
the face of ferocious animals has served to inspire the
American experiment since its earliest days. In 1775, preacher David

(03:20):
Jones of the city of Philadelphia tried to stir his
congregation toward the cause of rebellion against the oppressive Brit
And he, being a good Christian, had to mention, of course,
that when Paul in the New Testament says one should
be subject to higher power, he could not have meant
that we must be loyal to monarchs if those monarchs
have unjust, oppressive policies. And to cite an example of

(03:41):
standing up in the face of unjust policies, Jones argued
as follows. We cannot suppose either that this text enjoins
absolute submission to all law, which may be made in
a land. For some are so wicked, oppressive, and unjust
in their nature and tendency that the best of men
have thought it their indispensable duty to disobey them. You

(04:03):
may well remember that Nebuchadnezzar made it a certain law
that all nations in his empire should, on pain of death,
worship his golden image. Was it the duty of his
subject to obey or not? Jones continued. Remember also, when Darius,
king of Persia, made a statue that no man should petition,
either God or man save himself for 30 days. Daniel

(04:24):
refused obedience unto the decree because it was unrighteous. In
other words, this revolutionary era preacher saw in the prism
of Daniel the model of standing upright and unafraid in
the face of an oppressive monarch, teaching what we call
nowadays civil disobedience. Standing strong for what you believe is

(04:44):
right and what is required of you by God, even
if the human beings in charge are trying to be
tyrannical and force you to do otherwise. Now Daniel stuck
around through the cause of abolition. There was a well-known

(05:05):
slave spiritual that used the story of Daniel in the
lion's den as a metaphor for delivery from slavery and injustice.
And it began, didn't my Lord deliver Daniel? And why
not every man? This was something sung by slaves in
cotton fields, aspiring for the righteous deliverance that Daniel merited.
Frederick Douglass, in chapter 11 of his autobiography, writes that

(05:26):
he felt like one who had escaped a den of
hungry lions. Douglass, of course, had escaped slavery to become
a renowned orator and a dear friend of none other
than President Abraham Lincoln himself. He saw in his own
story salvation that mirrored that of Daniel. And in October 1864,
Sojourner Truth, another escaped slave turned abolitionist, thought of the

(05:49):
story of Daniel while visiting President Lincoln. Sojourner Truth had
never learned to read or write, but she was a
devoted student of the Bible for her entire life. And
she saw in the great emancipator shades of Babylon's great visionary.
I said to him, Mr. President, when you first took
your seat, I feared you would be torn to pieces.
For I likened you unto Daniel, who was thrown into

(06:09):
the lion's den. If the lions did not tear you
into pieces, I knew that it would be God that
had saved you. And I said, if he spared me,
I would see you before the four years expired. And
he has done so. And now I am here to
see you for myself. In other words, truth saw the

(06:31):
miraculous survival of Daniel as embodied in the survival and
the success of Lincoln's fight against the scourge of slavery.
This teaches us so much about how Americans have imagined
political courage. They have seen in their aspiration for America
to fulfill its promised ideals of equality and dignity for

(06:51):
all its citizens, the equality and dignity of America. that
Daniel demanded by insisting on praying to the one true God,
even under the penalty of death. Martin Luther King Jr.,
in his letter from a Birmingham jail, also invoked Daniel's
three friends. Of course, there is nothing new about this
kind of civil disobedience, he said about his own cause

(07:13):
of righteousness. It was seen, he continued sublimely, in the
refusal of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws
of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. In
other words, Reverend King too saw in Daniel a dynamic
example of courage under fright and fear and enemies frothing
at the mouth for a righteous cause to be defeated. Now,

(07:40):
Daniel has continued to wander through not only the lion's den,
but the halls of power of the United States for decades,
even onto yesterday's headlines. So a few decades ago, Democratic
Congressman Jim Wright who would go on to become Speaker
of the House under President Reagan, wrote in his memoirs
of seeing the Catholic president, JFK, address a powerful council
of Methodist bishops. I made a statement afterwards, he recounted,

(08:04):
that Kennedy reminded me of Daniel in the lion's den.
A few of my constituents got angry at me, accusing
me of comparing Protestant ministers to lions. They were just
looking for something to get shook up about. I'm glad
I lived during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. It
was a time when a man could have heroes. there's
a bit of a danger in individuals casting themselves as Daniel.

(08:24):
We know the original biblical hero stood up in the
face of objective tyranny, oppression, and ferocious animals, literally. But perhaps,
while many politicians might have felt the same, we shouldn't
be so quick to see those who oppose our opinions,
our politics, our beliefs, and our values as ferocious, carnivorous lions.
Perhaps we should aspire to see them not as foes,

(08:47):
but as friends who are just a little bit different.
Perhaps they don't want to devour us, but they just
want to debate us.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to
Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern, his book, The Jewish Roots of
American Liberty. And my goodness, this idea of Daniel epitomizing
courage in the face of fear, not just for Christians.
We see it in the lives of people as divergent
as Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, and Frederick Douglass. The

(09:22):
story of Daniel here on Our American Stories.