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Harvey Belovski, rabbi at Golders Green United Synagogue:Ìý

Today, 19th November, in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech that became one of the most well-known of all time.ÌýLincoln – who would only be president of the USA for another 18 months before his assassination – was speaking at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War.Ìý

The Gettysburg Address is only 271 words long, yet it touches on one of the most important ideas that impacts on all of us – Liberty.ÌýAs Lincoln said, the new nation – the USA – was ‘conceived in Liberty’ and was devoted to a new concept – ‘that all men are created equal’.

ÌýLiberty has been in my thoughts recently as I returned last week from my first visit to Philadelphia, just a couple of hours from Gettysburg.ÌýI had a great time visiting friends and speaking at a local synagogue.

ÌýI was especially taken by the Liberty Bell, an iconic symbol of American independence and captures the aspirations of the people who came from all over the world to create the United States.ÌýI was excited to see that the bell – which is cracked, so it can’t be rung – is cast with a verse from the Jewish Bible: ‘Proclaim liberty throughout all the Land unto the all the Inhabitants thereof’.Ìý

That verse actually refers to a Jubilee year in ancient times, when land was redistributed to its ancestral owners and the horn was blown to announce liberty to all, especially the oppressed and disadvantaged.

ÌýThe great philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin recommends that we think of liberty as a positive concept – what he calls ‘not freedom from, but freedom to – to lead one prescribed form of life’.ÌýBerlin means that real liberty is the capacity to act freely, as we wish, without being subject to constraints set by others.

ÌýLiberty and equality were not invented by Lincoln, but they are ideas of huge, world-changing importance, which I fear we may sometimes take for granted.ÌýYet for much of history, oppression, persecution and lack of personal freedoms were most peoples’ experience of life.ÌýAnd even now, in many places around the world, the struggle for liberty goes on.

ÌýToday is an opportunity to reflect on our liberties with which we are blessed.ÌýAnd most important, to resolve to do whatever we can to ensure that they can be enjoyed by every human being.