On the Lost Art of Letter Writing

The First Snow of Winter, December 14, 2025

“Time moves slowly but passes quickly.” These words by Alice Walker are ever so prescient the older I become. As another year ends, and as the first snow of winter has come and gone, I am astonished by the passage of time.

A few years ago, I boxed up my dad’s papers from two old filing cabinets in the garage of the house he and my mom shared during the final fifteen years of his life. In them were notes of all my dad’s sermons from fifty years of ministry as a Lutheran pastor, several folders of correspondence, news clippings that captured his attention, and a collection of his letters to the editor that were published in the local newspaper in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where my parents retired in the summer of 1991.

I did not get around to looking through these files until the day after Christmas, when my attention was immediately drawn to several file folders that covered the years 1997 to 2008. My dad apparently saved a copy of every letter he wrote and received during that time frame. I imagine my dad sitting in his study for two hours each morning, taking the time to draft just the right note of thanks, congratulations, friendly advice, concern for one’s loss, or a simple note to say “I was thinking of you recently” followed by three or four paragraphs of memories, updates, and encouragement.

While looking through these files, it occurred to me that letter writing is a lost art. Entire books have been written about the approximately one thousand letters that John and Abigail Adams shared between them during their lifetimes, letters that expressed their love for each other and documented the founding of a new country. The famous correspondence between Jefferson and Adams during the final years of their lives from 1812 to 1826 allowed them to discuss the unfinished business between them and to explain how and why they came to fundamentally different conclusions about the meaning of the American Revolution. Great letter writers in history also included, among others, Voltaire, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Queen Victoria, and Emily Dickinson.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is one of the most impactful letters in American history. In it, he explained why civil disobedience and nonviolent demonstrations were so important to social and political progress in the movement for racial equality. It also explained his frustrations with the moderate white clergy who were sympathetic to the cause of integration but unwilling to risk action. And it expressed King’s “hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty.” Fifteen months later, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law.

I do not suggest that my dad’s letter writing skill was equivalent to any of the historic figures cited above, but he took it seriously. In reading these letters, I gained insight into his thinking, his friendships, and the care and concern he had for so many people. Each letter he authored provides a glimpse of his extraordinary outreach to the people he knew and touched throughout his life.

The letters included correspondence with his close confidants—the Lutheran pastors I met during my high school years, when my dad was Bishop of the New Jersey Lutheran Synod. These letters brought back memories of the people and places of my youth, meaningful conversations about life, social concerns, and laughter. My dad laughed with special ease when he was around his close friends and colleagues, who all made it a point to include me and express genuine interest in me as a person. Today, sadly, so many of these people, including my dad, are no longer alive. But their impact on my life and development as a young man searching for guidance and answers to life’s big questions stuck with me over time.

Many of my dad’s letters are notes of thanks and encouragement, sent to people he had known over the years. It is incredible, really, to see how thoughtful and careful he was with each letter. With few exceptions, all were typed, single-spaced, filling most of the page and sometimes more. In each letter, he made sure to uplift the other person, impart his individual touch, and express his admiration for them.

I found a few letters to people my dad met through me and, until now, I did not know he had ever independently corresponded with them. One such letter expressed gratitude to a young woman who had encouraged me to serve on the Board of the service organization she directed. “You were indeed a major part in [Mark’s] motivation to serve in this important way during the years he lived and worked in Washington. Thanks for being that kind of ‘witness’ to him.”

Other letters discussed issues of social and political importance, such as one he wrote in September 2008 to the then Bishop of the Virginia Lutheran Synod: “This is just a quick note to express my personal gratitude to you for your comments which I read on the ELCA News Service last evening—as part of the ‘fighting poverty’ prayer vigil on the Capitol steps.” Attached to the letter was an article quoting the Bishop’s remarks as part of an interfaith coalition of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders calling on members of Congress to address poverty through enhanced funding for food stamps, unemployment insurance, child support enforcement, health care, and home energy assistance. My dad thanked him and said he had “needed to hear some prophetic words from a bishop whom I know and respect.” Many letters to others were similar expressions of thanks and gratitude for acts of service and “witness” to people in need.

In the late 1990s, like many mainline Protestant denominations in the United States, the Lutheran Church debated resolutions that proposed making the church community more open and inclusive to the LGBTQ community, and which eventually moved the Church to ordaining openly gay and lesbian pastors and allowing clergy to perform gay marriages. My dad heartily endorsed these resolutions, which caused at least three close friends to consider leaving the church. One of these friends, who my dad had known since they attended seminary together in the early 1950s, told my dad he could not be friends with anyone who disagreed with him on this issue. In a series of heart-felt letters to this person, my dad passionately defended the necessity of the resolutions, shared deeply painful stories of two young men he had counseled over the years who later committed suicide, in part due to their inability to reconcile traditional church teachings with their sexual orientation. In one case, my dad painfully acknowledged that he had mishandled his counseling of the young man (in the early 1960s) and he blamed society’s and the Church’s lack of compassion and misunderstanding of sexual orientation for much of the suffering experienced by the LBGTQ community. He explained that he came to more fully understand that one’s sexual orientation is pre-ordained and the application of outdated biblical precepts was profoundly contrary to God’s love, compassion, and understanding of all humanity. I am proud of my dad’s compassionate advocacy for a more welcoming and inclusive church community and his willingness to risk long-standing friendships over such a critical issue years before the Lutheran Church and society fully evolved on the issue.

My dad also was a prolific writer of letters to the editor, in which he sometimes praised and frequently criticized an opinion expressed in the Op-Ed section of his local paper. The theme underlying most of these letters was anger at insensitivity, injustice, and self-righteousness, a genuine concern for humanity, and a lifelong pastor’s frustration with people misunderstanding what Christian witness is all about, especially in the Bible Belt South.

In one such letter, he responded to a previous letter writer who claimed that “the choice between rich and poor is ours for the making” and that those who “choose to be poor” deserve the consequences they suffer. My dad would have none of it:

Can you imagine how those folks on the lowest end of the economic scale feel when they read that kind of ideological trash? Can you imagine how single mothers, working a 40- or 50-hour week at minimum wage, struggling to pay for the children’s day care … and living in substandard housing, must have felt when they read [that letter] in the Sunday newspaper? What about the elderly living only on Social Security, struggling to pay rent and medical bills? Imagine how the hardworking family breadwinners, also earning just above minimum wage, wondering how they will pay the rent, feed their family, and gas up the car to get to work, must have felt in reaching such an insensitive letter?

God forgive us for our self-righteousness in the midst of our plenty. …

On another occasion, my dad wrote in response to a heartfelt commentary from one of the paper’s regular columnists, who had courageously revealed his struggle with alcoholism. In a letter praising the columnist that also reflected Dad’s frustrations with those who had been critical of him, my dad wrote:

This letter is to express thanks to [Stephen Black] for sharing, with both his admirers and his critics, his struggle with alcoholism over these many years. He has truly shared with the readers of the Times-News the story of God’s loving grace in a much more convincing way than all of the nasty and self-righteous letters (often with biblical quotes totally out of context) which often are printed in the “Letters” section. He understands what it means to have been “through the valley of the shadow of death”, and his expressions of gratitude to God, to his family, to the medical community who ministered to him, and to his good friends who stuck by him, are models of thanksgiving which all of us can imitate.

…Stick it to us, Steve, when we get too pompous, too uncaring about our neighbors who may be different than we are, too self-satisfied, too nasty or unloving toward those less fortunate than we. … Please keep those columns coming!

The letters I most enjoyed, however, were the personal ones that displayed my dad’s sense of humor. Upon learning in May 2008 that his longtime friend and colleague, the Rev. Dr. Glenn Rudisill, was about to celebrate his 90th birthday, my dad wrote:

Dear Glenn:

My mother taught me just a few years ago that I had to treat my elders with respect. While I have never known anyone quite as old as you are, this letter will be my attempt to communicate with the elderly.

Actually, you are an amazing guy! … My hope is that, thirty years from now, when I turn 90, I will be half as sharp as you are.

Dad was two months shy of his 80th birthday when he wrote this. Of course, my dad spent the remainder of that letter reminiscing and praising his good friend’s life, work, and “magnificent family” who reflected his “love, graciousness and commitment,” adding that Glenn had “been a marvelous colleague."

In an August 2008 letter to the Rev. Dr. Herluf Jensen, an accomplished theologian, pastor, and prophetic leader of the church during the volatile 1970s and 1980s, my dad wrote to congratulate him on the 40th anniversary of his ordination. In prior years, Jensen succeeded my dad, first as pastor of a church in Moorestown, New Jersey, and later as Bishop of the New Jersey Synod. The letter reminisced about their four decades of mutual counsel and respect, and recalled, with a tinge of pastoral humor:

Following my resignation as [Bishop] of the synod, what a delight it was for me to chair that meeting when you were elected to be my successor again! When I escorted you to the rostrum amidst a standing ovation, you asked me: “What do I do now?” My response was “Pray!”

Although he was a serious and highly respected theologian, I imagine Jensen laughed when he read that.

A letter from my dad to Rev. John Steinbruck in March 1997 also caught my attention. I have previously written about Steinbruck’s life and theology (here and here). During his time as senior pastor of Luther Place Church in Washington, D.C., Steinbruck and his wife Erna established the N Street Village, a four-story complex of shelters and clinics that offers food, clothing, housing, medical care, and social and mental health services to homeless women and their children. Dad wrote to congratulate Steinbruck on his impending retirement and to express gratitude for Steinbruck’s life of service on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society.

Your ministry … has been a gift for which we are all thankful. Whether you realize it or not, you have been one of my “heroes” in ministry. Indeed, led by God’s Spirit, you took what could have been an average urban congregation and enabled it to become a servant people in a city which has a reputation for taking itself too seriously. While I know that you will shy away from such praise, you need to know of [my] gratitude for the major role which you played in making this all happen.

There are so many more examples of letters and notes my dad saved that incorporated his experiences, concerns, and thankfulness for the people he had the opportunity to know over his 86 years of life. All his letters reflected his love for humanity, his caring nature, and his genuine interest in everyone to whom he wrote. I am thankful that he saved these letters, for they represent the memories, prayers, and laughter that filled my dad’s life. It is truly a gift to have them.

The digital age is upon us, and we have lost the special art of letter writing that more thoughtfully documents our friendships, appreciation, and concerns over our lifetimes. As we end one year and begin a new one, my wish to all of you is to enjoy life in all its dimensions. Let your friends and family know how much you care for them in written letters. Someday in the not-too-distant future, absent our letters, writings, and photographs, we will exist only in the memories of the people we have known and touched along the way. Peace to all and happy new year!

Edwin L. Ehlers circa 1990, McLean, Virginia

A Question of Character and American Values

U.S. military strike of civilian boat off Venezuelan coast, October 3, 2025

When he ran for president in 2020, Joe Biden described the election between he and Donald Trump as “a struggle for the soul of America.” It was an eloquent phrase from a politician not known for his eloquence, but the sentiment resonated with me for one simple reason: it was true.

Men and women make history, but they are incapable of knowing how history will turn out. This was true of the American patriots who fought in the revolution and the men who wrote, debated, and agreed upon the Constitution. It has been true of all the people who have fulfilled positions of leadership throughout American history. It is why, since its inception, the ultimate success of the American experiment has remained precarious and uncertain, and why Abraham Lincoln asked at Gettysburg “whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”

The men who founded and molded the early American republic were deeply human and possessed profound moral shortcomings, yet they were the greatest collection of political minds in history. Despite their strong disagreements, personality conflicts, regional rivalries, and conflicting interests, they held the union together during a vulnerable and turbulent time. The leadership they provided to a young and not yet fully formed nation helped shape the character of the political institutions that we rely upon to create and enforce our laws, protect our liberties, and implement the checks and balances set forth in the Constitution. In their public statements and proclamations, the leaders of our newly formed nation spoke with an eloquence frequently lacking in today’s political discourse, because they knew their reputations and legacies rested on the judgment of history.

A nation’s leaders transmit values across generations that determine and influence its national character. David Brooks has written that human beings “are social and spiritual creatures whose souls are either ennobled or degraded by the systems, cultures, and behaviors in which we are enmeshed.” In examining the policies and actions of a government, it is fair to ask, “Does this moralize or demoralize the people it touches? Does this induce them to behave more responsibly or less?” It is not possible to separate policy making from moral character. It is why America’s founders believed so strongly in the concept of public virtue.

As the historian Joseph J. Ellis noted in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, the United States is “the oldest enduring republic in world history, with a set of institutions and traditions that have stood the test of time.” That is true in part because “the fate of the American experiment … required honest and virtuous leaders to endure.” Honor and character still matter. Without leaders who exemplify these traits, the American project cannot survive.

I have been thinking about honor and character lately, particularly as we learn more about the President’s military campaign against civilian boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. At the orders of the President and Secretary of Defense, small vessels suspected of carrying illicit drugs are blown to bits with laser-guided missiles and military-grade munitions. In most cases, everyone aboard the vessels is killed immediately. In one violent drone strike on September 2 that killed nine people and split the boat apart, a second strike forty minutes later killed two defenseless men while they desperately held onto a floating piece of debris to keep from drowning.

In none of the approximately twenty-two strikes to date, which have killed at least eighty-seven civilians, has there been any attempt to arrest and prosecute the individuals on the boats or to seize the drugs allegedly being transported. Indeed, in one strike in October, two survivors were detained and repatriated back to their home countries (Colombia and Ecuador). Why they were not detained and brought back for prosecution raises a host of questions. Were there no drugs on the boat? Was there insufficient evidence that these two individuals were connected to a drug smuggling operation? We do not know because the government has provided no explanation or evidence.

These killings have no legal or moral justification. Blowing up boats operated by civilians, even ones suspected of committing a serious crime, is murder, not justice. These are attacks against citizens of a country with which America is not at war. The individuals on these boats are not enemy combatants, but people suspected of drug trafficking, a crime which, even if supported by evidence (we have at present only the President’s and Secretary Hegseth’s unsupported statements), is not a capital offense. Because the government has disclosed no evidence, we know nothing about the targeted individuals, what they were doing, what was on their boats, or where they were destined.

Trump and Hegseth have claimed that they are seeking to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States, which has been responsible for a surge of drug overdose deaths over the past few years. But the targeted boats, if they are indeed trafficking drugs, are almost certainly carrying cocaine and not fentanyl, which comes mostly from labs in Mexico. Will Trump start ordering military strikes on Mexican drug mules? He implied as much recently when he said: “And now we’re going to do land, because the land is much easier.” Is that to be the legal and moral justification for the undeclared war killings of non-combatants?

If Trump is so concerned about illegal drugs entering the United States, why has he pardoned or commuted the sentences of over one hundred convicted drug traffickers? And why did he recently pardon the former president of Honduras, who was convicted last year in U.S. federal court of conspiring to import more than four hundred tons of cocaine into the United States?

The military strikes on the civilian boats in the Caribbean are unjustified killings under domestic law, international humanitarian law, and the U.S. Code of Military Justice. Most or all these killings would constitute war crimes under the law of armed conflict, but that does not apply because the people targeted in these boats were not at war with the United States or engaged in armed conflict with us. Even if they were members of drug cartels (or “narco-terrorists” as Trump calls them), and we have no evidence to know either way, no drug cartel is engaged in armed conflict with the United States. That they may be engaged in criminal activity (again, we have seen no concrete evidence) does not justify the lethal force inflicted. (For a thorough analysis of the clearly illegal nature of the military strikes on the boats, see "Expert Q&A on the U.S. Boat Strikes” from Just Security).

Americans understandably have strong feelings about drug trafficking. I served for eighteen years as a federal prosecutor during which I prosecuted and convicted hundreds of suspected gang members and drug dealers. I have no problem with aggressive interdiction efforts that intercept, arrest, seize, and prosecute the individuals responsible for smuggling drugs into the United States. But drug trafficking is a crime to be managed pursuant to our democratically enacted laws, just like any other crime.

The United States is supposed to be a nation of laws, and we cannot simply kill anyone we suspect of committing a crime, even a serious one. As stated by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY): “There is a difference between being accused of being a bad guy and being a bad guy. It is called the presumption of innocence. It is called due process. It is called, basically, justice that our country was founded upon.” Respect for human rights, the rule of law, and constitutional safeguards are what separates democracies from the authoritarian regimes of the world.

America today is experiencing a crisis of values. How else to explain that large numbers of Americans appear indifferent to the President’s and Secretary Hegseth’s callous indifference to human life and the rule of law. Trump and Hegseth think that enough Americans will admire their toughness that they will not ask the challenging questions. But the soul of America, the character of our nation, demands better than that.

As former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) wrote in a recent essay in The Atlantic: “Citizens can support firm action while still holding on to their humanity. Death inflicted on the helpless is never an act of strength; it is what remains when strength forgets its purpose.” If extrajudicial killings of non-combatants are allowed to proceed with no oversight from Congress and no apparent accountability to the rule of law, we will have forfeited public virtue and lost the battle for America’s soul.

When, in 1776, the signers of the Declaration of Independence agreed to "mutually pledge to each other … our sacred Honor," they knew that the fate of the new republic depended on the honor and character of the men and women who would eventually be called upon to lead and represent the American citizenry. They did not demand perfection. And they understood that we cannot always expect people of impeccable moral character to lead the country. But public virtue, public honor, and public character have always mattered.

What message does it send to American citizens and the world when the statements and social media posts coming from the White House and many of the people serving in this administration, from Pete Hegseth to Stephen Miller, consistently appeal to the worst, most vile instincts of the body politic? These are people who routinely dehumanize immigrants, attribute the worst in everyone they fear or oppose, mock concepts like diversity and inclusion, despise the poor, openly discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and show resentment to the historical achievements of women, African Americans, and Latinos. They give little thought to how their policies impact real human beings, the communities in which they live and work, and the values they convey to American society. Their answer to every problem is to shift the blame to the prior administration and to accept responsibility for nothing.

What national values does the president convey when he orders the military to perform extrajudicial killings of civilians on the high seas? For that matter, what is the character of a nation that allows masked agents to racially profile Latinos, pull men and women from their cars as they head to work, ignore pleas that they have valid work permits and are here legally, and in some cases are U.S. citizens? What is the character of a country that, on the flimsiest of evidence and without due process, sends hundreds of immigrants to a notorious El Salvador prison known for its cruel treatment of inmates and human rights violations? What message does a country send when the president and his family members make billions of dollars on crypto investments and real-estate deals with foreign governments without regard for government ethics, the rules against conflicts of interest, and the laws against bribery? These are the actions of authoritarian governments and dictators, countries that are run by men and not laws.

The United States is better than this. As James Madison wrote in 1788, if our leaders lack sufficient “virtue and wisdom … we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no form of government can render us secure.” It is up to “We the People” to restore virtue and wisdom to American governance.

As Noah Webster wrote in 1835, “If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted.” We have had moments in our history when principled leaders of good character were not in charge, and the nation suffered. But we are today at a crucial turning point. How much longer can we endure under the current regime? The character of the nation, the “soul of America,” demands more. It is up to Congress, the Courts, and all of us, to ensure that the rule of law, and the checks and balances embedded in our Constitution, are upheld. If not, it is doubtful “whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”

Noble Ideals and Complicated Truths: Understanding the American Revolution

To make sense of our present, we must understand our past. This is the essence of history. We are currently a divided nation. Individual states are described as red or blue depending on their political leanings. People are reluctant to engage in meaningful conversations with friends and family members about politics and current events for fear of starting an argument or causing irreparable tensions. What cable television network you watch or newspapers and periodicals you read has become a reliable predictor of where you stand on most issues. We long for the days when Americans were united and could proudly stand together in support of a common cause. But to study American history is to learn that those days never existed. We have always been a nation divided.

I recently finished watching The American Revolution, the epic PBS documentary co-produced and directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt. Over six parts and twelve hours, this magnificent film achieved the nearly impossible task of encapsulating the complex motives and myriad conflicts that led to American independence and the founding of our nation. As with Burns’ other documentary films—on the Civil War, World War II, the Vietnam War; on the history of baseball, the national park system; on Franklin Roosevelt and Benjamin Franklin—we are reintroduced to familiar stories with fresh insight and new perspectives. Burns’ films instruct that most American history involves division, yet his films help bring us together, for this is what insight and perspective bestow.

To grasp the American Revolution is to understand the complexity and messiness of our history. While our national origin story drew from virtuous ideals of liberty, freedom, and equality (“we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”), it arose out of violence and brutality, contradictions and hypocrisy, and involved deep divisions and disagreements.

The history of the American Revolution is an inspiring story. It is also a complicated, confusing, and deeply human one. The people who risked their lives in defense of an idea and the pursuit of independence, were deeply flawed human beings, as are we. Coming to terms with the reality and complexity of the Revolution requires that we undo the mythology of America’s founding and examine the lives of the people directly and indirectly impacted, the importance of land, geography, and competing national interests, and the political and economic motivations that influenced the divergent actors involved.

As a documentary, The American Revolution provides a holistic and comprehensive understanding of the American story. The film sheds light on a widely diverse group of people who lived through the Revolution, not only those who led and instigated the revolutionary fervor that eventually took hold in the colonies, but also everyday Americans whose voices and perspectives are frequently ignored or forgotten. A complete look at the American Revolution must include women, free and enslaved Africans, Native Americans, and an assortment of mostly poor immigrants who descended from Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and other nations.

Women played integral roles in taking care of the homestead, following the troops into battle, healing the wounded, and burying the dead. Black Americans were excluded from the aspirational visions of America’s founding yet understood profoundly the universal ideals espoused. Thousands would risk their lives by joining forces with the Loyalists (fewer with the Patriots) in the hope of a better future. Native Americans were forced to navigate competing factions of people they did not trust in a war they did not ask for and which would threaten their survival, national identities, and land.

And yet, the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence united thirteen diverse colonies based on the idea that anyone who arrived on American shores and committed to the nation’s principles could be an American. It was these aspirational ideals, along with the leadership and wisdom of men like George Washington, which held the union together. These revolutionary ideas, and the people who planned and led America’s fight for independence, continue to inspire me. The American Revolution only reaffirmed my profound gratitude towards Washington, without whom we could not have prevailed, and to Benjamin Franklin, John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush, and many others.

The American Revolution examines the good and the bad, juxtaposing the noble underpinnings of the revolution with the tragedy of slavery, the exclusion of women and Black Americans from the body politic, and the dispossession of Native Americans lands. It also examines the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Americans who combined distinct cultures and religions, spoke different languages, and knew little about the people from other colonies who also came to identify as Americans. Out of this complexity and messiness is the miracle and promise that became America. The film helps us better understand that, when we live up to our ideals, we truly are a light unto the nations.

So much of what we understand of the American Revolution is encased in myth, sentimentality, and nostalgia. I learned at a young age that Americans were aggrieved by a neglectful and detached British monarchy that imposed unfair taxes on us without our consent—taxation without representation—and imposed a series of repressive decrees that were enforced by British authorities with no input from American colonists or their representatives. Then, an energetic assortment of patriotic Americans aspiring to liberty, freedom, and equality gallantly fought for our independence. Although partly true, this version fails to do justice to the entire story, which is far more complex and human.

In fact, the Revolutionary War was a brutal civil war involving tens of thousands of Americans on both sides of the conflict. When the war began at Lexington and Concord in 1775, most American rebels had no interest in breaking with the British empire. As the war progressed and it became more about independence and sovereignty, Americans were forced to choose sides in a conflict that divided families, communities, cities, and villages. As the film notes, for many American colonists, the decision to become a patriot or loyalist was not an easy one, and those who chose to remain loyal to the King were not bad people; their reasons seemed rational and sensible at the time.

The war encompassed eight years of uncertainty and terror that left tremendous loss and destruction in its aftermath. Officers in Washington’s Army served with little or no pay, endured poor supplies, a lack of adequate clothing, terrible conditions, food shortages, illness, and harsh weather. More died of disease than died in combat. Over time, many deserted, some threatened mutiny. Prisoners of war on both sides were treated inhumanely, some were tortured, and many would die of starvation or disease. Retaliation and recrimination against loyalists by their patriot neighbors included incredible acts of cruelty. Tens of thousands of Americans became refugees when forced to flee their homes depending on which army occupied their town or city.

Black Americans deciding where to place their allegiances had no easy choices. The British were the world’s foremost slave traffickers at that time, so Lord Dunmore’s proclamation promising emancipation in exchange for joining British forces understandably raised skepticism. But it was abundantly clear that emancipation was not on the agenda of the Continental Congress. Approximately 15,000 Black Americans chose to risk it all by escaping their slaveholders and fighting on the side of the British. Only 5,000 Black Americans opted to align with the Continental Army.

For the Black Americans who sided with the British, the end of the war brought inexpressible terror and anguish – the thoughts of returning to their cruel and brutal masters was too much to bear. During peace negotiations, General Washington insisted that the British return every runaway slave to their rightful owners, but the commander in chief of the British forces refused. Britain had promised to free all slaves who came to fight for them and it was a question of national honor for them to live up to their word.

At war’s end, thousands of Black Loyalists fled the newly established United States and sailed to Nova Scotia, Britain, or the islands of the Caribbean, rather than take their chances in America. As Andrew Lawler wrote in the November 2025 issue of The Atlantic, “The story of the Black Loyalists and their postwar diaspora highlights an irony long ignored: Thousands of those with the biggest stake in securing liberty ultimately had to flee a country founded on the premise that all are created equal.” For those who left, life continued to be harsh and unfair. But the unlikely alliance between Britain and enslaved Africans during the Revolutionary War “set in motion a series of events that would … undermine the foundations of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic.” In later years, American abolitionists, including John Quincy Adams, would view Britain’s wartime proclamations as important legal precedents in the movement to end slavery. Such are the power of ideas.

Also forgotten in the history of the American fight for independence were the millions of native Americans who lived among the colonists and the land west of the Appalachians. The idea of liberty embedded in the Declaration of Independence and our founding documents included, for the colonists, a quest for unfettered access to the lands and resources of Native nations. Britain had restricted settlers from claiming land beyond the Appalachians, and this decree, even more than taxation without representation, was deemed intolerable. Across the colonies, native independence was a threat to colonists who wished to claim the very lands that native peoples had occupied and nurtured for hundreds of generations.

Nevertheless, thousands of Indigenous people fought in the Revolutionary War, more for the British than for the Americans. Native tribes had to assess which uneasy alliance would better serve and protect the interests of their sovereign nations. The end of the war brought no peace for them. The newly formed United States dismissed and exploited the native tribes, dispossessed their lands, and restricted their individual liberties. Indigenous Americans would not become citizens until 1924, and their struggle to remain sovereign would never end.

As Ned Blackhawk, a native American historian interviewed in the film writes in The Atlantic, “The colonists sought not just territory, but unchallenged dominion. To achieve this, they needed to erase the legitimacy of Native governance and justify violent dispossession.” Indeed, to study the American Revolution is to learn that “[m]uch of American history has involved efforts to impose constrained visions of liberty—rooted in individualism, private property, and patriarchal norms—on Native peoples.”

And yet, despite the injustices and inequities, the American Revolution remains a story of inspiration and hope. Eventually aided by the French, ordinary Americans with little status won the war because they refused to give up, shared in the hardships, and supported each other in trouble and sickness. They did this for an aspirational vision of an independent republic founded on notions of liberty, freedom, equality, and a government of the people guided by the rule of law. It was the first time in history a nation was founded on such ideals. That not all Americans would share equally (or at all) in those fruits at war’s end does not erase the promise of liberty and freedom that the American Revolution inspired across the globe.

The power of words to unite competing factions of colonists and galvanize a movement for independence is another part of the unique American story. Powerful writings, such as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the words of the Declaration of Independence helped transform hostility to British rule into a national movement that would inspire people and countries around the world for the next two centuries. The challenge for us is to draw on the aspirations of liberty, freedom, and equality, and strive to be the nation our forebears thought we could become.

In 1963, while standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., declared, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” As we approach 250 years since the signing of the Declaration, we have a more developed and inclusive understanding of the “self-evident truth that all men are created equal,” one that includes women, persons of color, immigrants, and people of different cultures, creeds, and ethnicities. The aspirations of our forebears have inspired people and nations, across continents and centuries, even when we failed to live up to them ourselves. There is no going back; the promissory note is due and it must be paid.

On April 19, 1775, when the first shots of the American Revolution were fired, the outcome of the war was uncertain and full of risk. The story of America’s founding is thus hopeful and inspiring. But we cannot do justice to our past unless we reckon with all its complexity. Human rights, equality, and the rule of law were ideas worth fighting for. The American Revolution remains a work in progress. Whether we live up to those ideals and behold the promise that is America, is up to us and future generations.

A Better Society: The Legacy of Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins, Time Magazine Cover, August 14, 1933

When I studied economics in college during the late 1970s, I learned about supply and demand, how competitive markets are supposed to operate, the impact of monopolies and oligopolies on free trade; I studied evolving theories of price inelasticity and economies of scale, and debated differing views of monetary and fiscal policy. The study of economics helped me understand the foundations of a capitalist economy. But what was frequently missing was the real-world impact of our economic system, its successes and failures, winners and losers, and how different economic policies affected the lives of everyday people.

It was only when I combined economic theory with history and began to examine how economics applies in real life that I fully appreciated the initiative-taking ingenuity of the New Deal under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The New Deal was not just a slogan, but an ambitious and comprehensive set of government programs aimed at rescuing the United States from the Great Depression, countering record-high rates of unemployment, homelessness, hungry people in bread lines, mass bank failures and foreclosures, and an economic system that had failed so many Americans. From public job programs and unemployment insurance to improved workplace safety and health requirements, the FDR government showed that people mattered, that hope survived, and that the common good was an essential component of a compassionate society.

“The test of our progress,” said FDR, “is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” That, to me, is the true test of a nation’s character. What kind of country and society do we aspire to be? It is why, for most of my life, I have believed in the power of government to do good and provide a basic level of economic security for those left behind.

I also believe in the power of private sector innovation and ingenuity and understand the limitations and inefficiencies that have burdened certain government programs. But when I see how badly corporate America repeatedly has failed the working class and how easily and cold-heartedly companies let go of thousands of loyal and dedicated employees to improve profit margins by even a little bit, I come back to the values that inspired me throughout my life, faith-based values of compassion for those in need and a belief that government exists for the common good.

One significant, often overlooked, figure of twentieth century American history who shared this view is Frances Perkins. Appointed by President Roosevelt as Secretary of Labor in 1933, Perkins was the first woman in U.S. history to serve in a presidential cabinet, a position she held for the next twelve years. When FDR appointed her, Perkins was known as a social reformer who had advocated better working conditions for factory workers and an end to child labor. But only after I read The Woman Behind the New Deal by Kirstin Downey (Vintage Books, 2009), did I understand just how fundamental she was to the creation and implementation of the most important legacies of the New Deal—social security, unemployment insurance, and the minimum wage, to name a few.

Although Perkins had a privileged upbringing, from an early age she aligned herself with the Christian Social Gospel movement and believed her mission in life was to help the poor and those in need. Her first real exposure to poverty was when she worked at Hull House in Chicago, a settlement house founded by Jane Addams that provided social and educational opportunities to lower and working-class people. Settlement houses were communal boarding houses where social workers and community activists lived and ate together as they served individuals and families in need. As described by Downey, “Hull House offered job training, health services, childcare, a library, and a savings bank. It operated a kindergarten, day care center, English-language and U.S. citizenship classes, and clubs for new mothers, camera enthusiasts, and aspiring artists and musicians.” It brought hope and dignity to those in need and lifted the spirits of the people impacted.

The success of Hull House inspired a national movement and eventually led to hundreds of settlement houses across the United States. Working at Hull House changed Perkins’s life. She witnessed firsthand the problems experienced every day by the urban poor—people living in overcrowded conditions without basic sanitation services in decaying city tenements, in neighborhoods regularly exposed to contagious diseases. From that point on, Perkins devoted her life to improving the lives of the poor and those left behind by an unforgiving economic system.

Perkins eventually received a master’s degree in social economics from Columbia University and worked for the National Consumers League in New York, where she focused on child labor, poor wages, excessively long workdays, and unsafe workplaces. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, young children were frequently employed for twelve hours a day in factories and sweatshops, and thousands suffered serious injuries from work unsuitable for their small, undeveloped bodies. In the lower east side, women worked in unsanitary and harsh conditions in garment factories at excessively low wages. In most factories and workplaces around the country, if a worker became sick or was injured on the job, they were left to fend for themselves. The government offered no protection. There was no unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, social security, or disability insurance.

On March 11, 1911, Perkins was having tea near Washington Square Park when she learned that the ten-story building that housed the Triangle Shirtwaist factory had caught fire. She rushed outside and saw flames coming from the windows of the building as the women, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrants, were trapped inside with no means of escape. Fifty women jumped to their deaths rather than burn to death, their bodies landing one on top of another on the street below. Before the fire department extinguished the flames, 146 workers died. It was later discovered that workers complained to management about the unsafe working conditions two years before the fire. The company ignored the complaints, fired the complaining workers, and did nothing to address their concerns. For Perkins, this was another turning point in her life.

After the fire, Perkins’s advocacy led to the creation of the New York State Factory Investigation Commission, whose first order of business was to investigate the causes of the fire. The Commission held hearings and learned that the factory’s managers had padlocked exits to all but one stairwell to prevent workers from leaving with leftover scraps of cloth. To compound the danger, the door to the stairwell swung inward making it nearly impossible to open when frightened workers attempted all at once to flee the rapidly spreading fire. The factory building contained no automatic sprinklers, and flames quickly consumed the only open stairwell. A rickety fire escape, built to accommodate only a few people at a time, collapsed as panicked workers piled on. With no way out for the remaining workers, their only hope was to be rescued by the fire company, but the firefighter’s ladders only reached the sixth floor, thirty feet below the igniting flames.

Based on the Commission’s findings, the New York Legislature passed a series of bills that prohibited smoking in factories, required mandatory fire drills, required automatic sprinklers in all buildings taller than seven stories, and established a system of building registrations and regular inspections. At the time, these were pathbreaking reforms. The legislature eventually required all factories to provide washing facilities, clean drinking water, and sanitary restrooms. All these measures mirrored the reforms advocated by Perkins.

Perkins caught the attention of New York Governors Al Smith and, later, Franklin Roosevelt, who recognized that this intelligent, industrious woman understood the issues facing the poor and working classes in American society. In 1930, at the start of the Great Depression, Perkins convinced Governor Roosevelt to appoint a state commission to study unemployment and propose solutions, and she pushed him to create a system of unemployment insurance. When Roosevelt was elected president, he asked Perkins to become his Secretary of Labor.

Before Perkins accepted, however, she needed assurances that Roosevelt would support her policy ideas and initiatives. By then, a third of the workforce was unemployed. There was no public assistance. Charities were running out of money and forced to turn away the hungry. One in six homes was lost to foreclosure. Sick people stopped going to doctors because they could not afford medical care.

Perkins wanted Roosevelt to agree to a public works program to immediately address unemployment, a national labor policy to protect the rights of workers, a forty-hour workweek, a federal minimum wage, workers compensation to ensure that people injured at work did not desperately slide into poverty, a national system of unemployment insurance, an old-age pension (Social Security), a revitalized public employment service, and a system of national health insurance.

As Downey notes in A Woman Behind the New Deal, “The scope of her list was breathtaking. She was proposing a fundamental and radical restructuring of American society, with enactment of historic social welfare and labor laws. To succeed, she would have to overcome opposition from the courts, business, labor unions, conservatives.” Roosevelt agreed to all of it. And except for national health insurance, which the American Medical Association fought with all its might, Perkins and Roosevelt achieved all her original demands.

When Perkins took over the Labor Department, she found an ineffective agency filled with malfeasance. She worked diligently to cleanse the department of inept and corrupt management. She professionalized the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which permanently improved the accuracy of employment and wage statistics, and modernized the cost-of-living index. One of her first official acts as secretary was to racially integrate the department’s cafeteria. Frances Perkins was truly a woman ahead of her time.

She collaborated closely with the president to help alleviate the suffering of millions of Americans who were out of work. Under her leadership, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was established within days of inauguration. As Downey notes, by August 1933, the CCC had put 300,000 men to work “planting trees, building bridges and fire towers, restoring historic battlefields, and beautifying the country’s National Park System.” Soon, the government created other public works agencies, and millions of people were employed building dams, tunnels, bridges, roads and parkways, schools and hospitals, playgrounds and public parks. Although the economy continued to stagnate, the unemployment rate declined, and New Deal programs built much of the nation’s infrastructure that contributed to the dramatic expansion of the U.S. economy in the years to follow.

Although Roosevelt treated Perkins as a peer of equal importance and intelligence, she faced frequent sexism, condescension, and disrespect from the male dominated ranks of labor leaders, Congress, and the Cabinet. Although she did more to advance the cause of workers than anyone else at that time in U.S. history, the heads of major labor organizations treated her with disdain and never accepted a woman as Secretary of Labor. Even the press often failed to recognize that Perkins drafted the New Deal’s most important and enduring laws, helped get them enacted, and then administered them fairly and effectively.

Perkins was instrumental in the drafting and passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, which the Washington Post proclaimed as the “New Deal’s Most Important Act.” It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the Act, for to this day it affects the lives of every man, woman, and child in the United States. Another of Perkins’s signature achievements was the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which introduced a federal minimum wage, restrictions on child labor, and an eight-hour workday. The law, as described by Downey, “ushered in a new way of life for many workers, permitting them an opportunity for rest and relaxation.”

If that were not enough, Perkins stood alone as the administration’s most vocal advocate for the admission of Jewish refugees throughout the 1930s. In the face of strict immigration quotas, an isolationist Congress, and an obstinate State Department, Perkins worked behind the scenes to relax the formal requirements to bring tens of thousands of German Jewish refugees to safety, thus rescuing them from the calamity of the Holocaust.

Perkins achieved what she did, as Downey describes, “selflessly, without hope of personal gain or public recognition.”

It is a great historic irony that Frances is now virtually unknown. Factory and office occupancy codes, fire escapes and other fire-prevention mechanisms are her legacy. About 44 million people collect Social Security checks each month; millions receive unemployment and workers’ compensation or the minimum wage; others get to go home after an eight-hour day because of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Very few know the name of the woman responsible for their benefits.

The lives of all Americans are significantly better over the past ninety years because of Frances Perkins. Her legacy remains with us to this day. Despite the efforts of the current administration, it is imperative that we not aspire to resurrect the wrongs corrected by the wisdom, compassion, and tenacity of Frances Perkins. Our failure to protect her legacy may determine the kind of country we will have for the next ninety years.

"Why Me?" Ralph Branca and the Lifelong Pain of Defeat

Ralph Branca, Brooklyn Dodgers, October 3, 1951

My father grew up in Jersey City during the 1930s and 1940s and developed an early attachment to the New York Giants Baseball Club, which played at the Polo Grounds, also known as Coogan’s Bluff, across the river in Manhattan. Back then, baseball fans in the New York area had three good teams from which to choose—the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants. Once loyalties were attached to one of those teams, the others became intensely hated rivals. This was especially so with the Giants and Dodgers, cross-town opponents in the National League. Even more than today’s Yankees-Red Sox and Cardinals-Cubs rivalries, the enmity between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers was the most intense in the history of sports. If you were a Giants fan, you detested the Dodgers. If you were a Dodgers fan, you passionately hated the Giants.

In the fall of 1951, my dad and mom were living in Springfield, Ohio, where my dad was doing his graduate studies in theology. Dad remained a loyal and enthusiastic Giants fan. By early October, the Dodgers-Giants conflict had reached its peak. All attempts at diplomacy and reconciliation were futile. You see, the Giants had overcome a 13 ½ game deficit to tie the Dodgers for first place on the final day of the season, thus requiring a three-game playoff to determine the outcome of the National League pennant. After splitting the first two games, the entire season came down to one game, to be played at the Polo Grounds.

On October 3, 1951, Dad listened to the game on the radio while my mom, apparently less interested in this epic battle of life and death and existential struggle for the souls of man, had left to run errands. For Dad, things were going poorly, the Dodgers holding onto a 4-1 lead as the Giants came to bat in the bottom of the ninth. But Dodgers starting pitcher Don Newcombe, who until then was pitching a brilliant game, holding the Giants to one run over the first eight innings, began to show signs of fatigue. Three of the first four Giants batters hit safely in the ninth, driving in a run and putting runners on second and third with one out. The Dodgers had Carl Erskine and Ralph Branca throwing in the bullpen, but Erskine was spiking his curveball in the dirt during warmup tosses. So, when Dodgers manager Gil Hodges walked out to the mound and took the ball from the tiring Newcombe, he called for Branca to come in and get the final two outs.

Branca was a fine pitcher. Normally a starter, he was a three-time all-star who won thirteen games that season and, in 1947, was the second youngest pitcher in history to win twenty games (Christy Mathewson was the youngest). But Branca had given up a home run to Thompson in the first play-off game, so it was a choice that may have given Dodgers fans a dose of angina. At 3:58 pm, with the count 1-1 on Thompson, Branca threw a high inside fastball. Thompson swung and hit a low line drive that sailed over the left field wall to win the game. My dad listened intently as Russ Hodges of WMCA radio announced, “There’s a long drive… It’s gonna be, I believe?... The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”

It was at this precise moment, based on Dad’s recollection, that my mom returned from the store, grocery bags in hand. As my dad jumped up and down like a madman, he grabbed my mom and twirled her around while yelling indecipherable nonsense of utter joy and delight. My mom, failing to fully appreciate the historic enormity of the occasion, was slightly annoyed and told him to settle down. Oh, the loneliness of being a fan.

Bobby Thomson home run, October 3, 1951

Thomson’s home run would be forever known as “The Shot Heard Round the World” and later dubbed by legendary sportswriter Red Smith as the “The Miracle at Coogan’s Bluff.” It is a memory that stuck with my dad for the rest of his life. When he died, the one memento of his of which I made sure to take possession was his framed photograph of Thomson hitting the home run and showing the trajectory of the ball from Thomson’s bat to the left field stands. Ralph Branca and Bobby Thomson signed the picture.

As a loyal and dedicated fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, I fully appreciate the elation and joy my dad felt that October afternoon three-quarters of a century ago. When David Freese hit a triple with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in game six of the World Series against the Texas Rangers in 2011, driving in two runs to tie the game, and then hit a home run to win it in the bottom of the eleventh, I nearly passed out from excessive exhilaration. The Cards winning the World Series in 1967, 1982, 2006, and 2011 are sources of blissful memories in my life that will forever stay with me.

But for every team, player, and fan who jumps for joy when victory is rescued from the jaws of defeat, there is another side to the story. In sports, for every win there is a loss. While Bobby Thomson was being mobbed on the field and elevated to the mythical status of Baseball Hero, Ralph Branca, who threw the pitch that led to the home run, threw the rosin bag on the ground in anger and despair, and held his head in shame. Just as Giants fans will forever remember the ecstasy experienced as Thomson blasted the home run that won the National League pennant, every Dodgers fan, especially those alive when it happened, continue to endure painful memories of that fateful day in October.

After the game, Branca was an emotional wreck, distraught and shaken by what had transpired from what he called “that goddamn pitch.” It haunted him for the rest of his life. Branca was a devout Catholic, a man of deep faith, and he could not help but ask, “Why me?” When he left the Polo Grounds following the game, he met with his priest to discuss the “tragic” event. He asked, “But why me, Father? I love this game so much. Why did it have to be me?” Father Rowley responded, “God chose you because [God] knew you’d be strong enough to bear this cross.”

Branca struggled the remainder of his life to come to grips with how a single pitch out of an otherwise good career that encompassed thousands of pitches could define for so many people their perception of his worth. It was a tough cross for Branca to bear. He was never the same pitcher after the 1951 season. “You know, if you kill somebody, they sentence you to life,” he often said. “You serve twenty years, and you get paroled. I’ve never been paroled.”

In Ralph Branca and the Meaning of Life (McFarland & Company, 2025), Bob Mitchell writes that “sometimes life can be a zero-sum game, with winners and losers canceling each other out and leaving nothing at all in between.” Like my dad, Mitchell was a lifelong Giants fan. He was seven years old when Thomson hit his legendary home run, and it was a moment he continues to recognize as one of the happiest moments of his life. He describes once meeting the legendary talk show host Larry King, a lifelong Dodgers fan. Although Mitchell had been invited onto the Larry King Show to discuss what was then a recently published memoir that reflected on how Mitchell’s 2015 heart transplant impacted his understanding of life and death, all King wanted to talk about was The Game and The Pitch. Just as that game and pitch positively changed the trajectory of Mitchell’s life as a young Giants fan, the same game and pitch nearly ruined King’s life as a seventeen-year-old boy who lived and died with the Dodgers. Here they were, 65 years later, still obsessing over “that goddamn pitch.”

As Mitchell explains, for himself and King, their different experiences of that game “formed our two different ways of looking at the world—then and for years to come: Hope vs. Cynicism, Certitude vs. Doubt, Ecstasy vs. Agony, Gratitude vs. Anger, Contentment vs. Envy—all evinced, simultaneously, by the very same spectacle, the very same single pitch.” King told Mitchell in the Green Room before the interview that the moment Thomson’s home run disappeared into the left field stands, “I felt as if I had just died. Damn near killed me, that Branca fastball.” Similarly, King’s good friend, the great sportswriter Dick Schapp, once said, “When Bobby Thomson hit that home run, my childhood ended.”

Why do sports fans care so much about the outcome of a game? Is it a flaw in our character? Or is it mostly an American thing? Americans, after all, are a competitive lot who take pride in winning and shame in losing. And yet, people learn so much more from losing than winning. Losing prepares us for life’s disappointments, and teaches us humility, perspective, justice, and dignity. It is failure, struggle, and conflict, not winning, that inspires great art and literature. But Americans tend to overlook, ignore, and hold in disdain those who fail to win. Yet everyone suffers the experience of failure.

During my first year in high school, I played on the freshmen football team. Although I was a tall, lanky kid, I had capable hands and was an adept receiver. Indeed, I led the team in scoring that year (not a great accomplishment on this particularly mediocre team). But the only experience I remember about that year was what happened in one game about halfway into the season. We were playing Lawrence Township and, with the score tied and one play left in the first half, the coach called for me to run a deep route on a pass play. I made a good move on the defender and had him beat by several steps when the quarterback threw the ball my way. A perfect spiral, it came right at me. I stopped in my tracks and waited for the ball to reach me and, with visions of scoring a dramatic touchdown filtering through my thick skull, the ball went through my arms and landed like a deadened grenade on the opponent’s thirty-yard line. Although it happened over fifty years ago, to this day, I still can’t believe I dropped the damn ball! I joined the team during the coach’s halftime meeting in utter humiliation and defeat. I’ll never forget the disdainful look from the coach and the mean-spirited remarks from teammates. For the rest of the season, I lost my confidence. I never played football again.

In sports, as in all competitive endeavors, someone must always lose. It is as much a part of sports as it is a part of life. But winning and losing too frequently defines how we perceive ourselves and others, especially as Americans. Although we learn so much more about ourselves when we lose, about how we manage defeat and struggle, our resilience and ability to overcome adversity and disappointment, too often we hold our heads in shame and let the noise of critics define our worth as human beings. If the goal of sports is merely to win, we miss its ultimate value. Shouldn’t the goal of sports be to compete, to excel, and to bring out the best in the human spirit? Mitchell described it well in his 1997 collection of philosophical prose, The Tao of Sports (Frog Books, 1997):

I win, you lose: so this means I’m better than you? Winning and losing are imposters, posing as self-worth and inadequacy. . . . Do you think you’re better or worse as a person, depending upon the result? Fact is, you’re no better or worse than the fullness of your effort, than the focus and dedication and enthusiasm with which you play. . . . It is the Game, not winning the game, that will ultimately bring you satisfaction. And losing comes not from losing, but from missing out on the learning and the growth and the challenge.

I cannot really claim to have learned this lesson, though in quiet moments of reflection I know it to be true. Losing and failure remain incredibly painful. When my kids were younger, my daughter Hannah, in seeing me become upset over a Cardinals loss, would say, “Dad, don’t sweat the small stuff!” To which I responded, “I agree – but this is not small stuff!” Yes, I have much to learn indeed.

I am afraid I am more like Ralph Branca, who years after surrendering the home run to Bobby Thomson, said, “I still have nightmares about that goddamn pitch.” Well, I still have nightmares about that goddamn dropped pass. And yet, the internal punishment we inflict on ourselves is eased by the recognition that failure and losing are integral parts of life. Failure is often more interesting and inspiring than success. The suffering and despair of losing helps us better understand the shortcomings, conflicts, and struggles of the human condition, and is even necessary to give deeper meaning and context to winning and success. In life, what is felt deeply can bear fruit only through struggle and disappointment.

Ralph Branca never forgave himself for throwing “that goddamn pitch.” When it was discovered some years later that the Giants were stealing signs and that, possibly, Thomson knew a fastball was coming, Branca experienced relief and later bitterness, for perhaps he was cheated, and it was not all his fault. But if bitterness and anger replace agony and despair, one is no better off than before.

I am happy that my father and millions of Giants fans experienced the thrill and excitement of the Shot Heard Round the World. But I also know from experience that my dad kept it all in perspective. He understood that, for Ralph Branca and millions of Dodgers fans, the pain and suffering experienced from that same game, and the pitch that resulted in Thomson’s home run, were just as real.

As Confucius wrote, “A man is great not because he hasn’t failed; a man is great because failure hasn’t stopped him.” In the end, we can all learn from the example of Boris Becker, the star German tennis player who in 1987 lost a major tennis match during the peak of his career to a low-ranked player named Peter Doohan. When reporters asked Becker how he lost to a virtual nobody, Becker replied, “I lost a tennis match. It was not a war. Nobody died.” Well said, Boris. It is a perspective we should all take to heart, and one I believe Ralph Branca himself eventually understood. 

Abraham Joshua Heschel and a Life of Meaning

Abraham Joshua Heschel speaking at UCLA, May 25, 1963

I find it helpful in life to identify role models, people who inspire you to live with meaning and purpose, to act in ways worthy of praise and admiration, and who move you to be kinder, seek justice, and help in some small way to make the world a better place. Some of our role models are found close to home—a parent, a teacher, a coach, a minister or rabbi, a mentor. Others are less personal but equally important, people of history who opposed injustice, spoke out when others remained silent, and led exemplary lives filled with integrity and meaning. For me, one such person is Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Heschel was a rabbi, teacher, philosopher, writer, and social and political activist. He was a loving father and husband. And he was a man of spiritual faith, a Jewish theologian who wrote beautifully and convincingly, with eloquent and poetic ease, about humankind’s desperate need of purpose and connection, and of his belief in a living God who sought human partners to repair the world.

Born into a Polish Hasidic community in 1907, Heschel was an observant Jew who respected the mosaic of all faiths and lived experiences he encountered along the way. He was a seeker who asked, “How can I rationally find a way where ultimate meaning lies? Why am I here at all, and what is my purpose?” In the academy, many of his colleagues and professors found these questions unworthy of philosophical analysis. But to Heschel, these questions were essential to a life well lived.

Heschel combined his theological studies with a study of philosophy and poetry, literature and political theory, theater and music. As explained by the historian Julian E. Zelizer in Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement (Yale University Press, 2021), Heschel was “fascinated with the nexus between the secular and the sacred” and, although for him a belief in God “was at the center of understanding all human ethical and religious activity,” he appreciated secular culture and respected the many secular writers and thinkers who shared his desire to better the world.

As a theologian, Heschel embraced a degree of intuitive thinking even as he accepted the scientific rationalism of modern society. His belief that all human beings were created in the image of God and that every person had the capacity for holiness deeply influenced his sense of justice. And yet, historic realities would challenge that belief. As a university student in Berlin in the 1930s, Heschel witnessed the disintegration of the Weimar Republic as the Nazi Party rose to power. He witnessed first-hand the rise of Hitler and Germany’s acquiescence to the brutality of Nazism. He saw Jewish-owned stores forced to place yellow stars on their doors as part of a national boycott on Jewish businesses and professions. He watched as an autocratic government brutally and systematically suppressed the freedom of fellow Jews.

On October 28, 1938, the Nazis detained Heschel and placed him in a detention camp as the Gestapo raided Jewish homes to deport thousands of Polish Jews then living in Germany. Less than two weeks later, on the night of November 9, violent mobs organized by the Nazi Party wreaked havoc on Jewish life in Germany. In what came to be known as Kristallnacht (“the night of the broken glass”), German authorities did nothing as violent mobs set hundreds of synagogues on fire and vandalized thousands of Jewish-owned businesses. Mobs of Nazi paramilitaries broke into homes, smashed furniture, and terrorized Jewish families. Following orders given by Nazi leaders, police forces and fire brigades did nothing to stop the destruction.

Although an invitation in 1939 to teach at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, allowed Heschel to emigrate to the United States and escape the Holocaust, Heschel’s mother and other family members who remained in Europe were not so fortunate. Their tragic deaths at the hands of the Nazis would profoundly influence Heschel’s life and work. The passive silence of most German Christians during the Holocaust deeply troubled Heschel and caused him to focus more intensely on how human detachment from God and morality can have tragic consequences. This would become the foundation of Heschel’s social and political activism.

As Heschel learned more about the catastrophic destinies of European Jews, he became convinced that humankind’s silence in the face of evil made everyone complicit in the persecution and suffering of fellow human beings. In trying to understand a broken world, Heschel came to believe that humankind’s relationship with God had weakened and contributed to a spiritual crisis in modern society that revealed itself in the brutality of a world war, the Holocaust, and the development of weapons of mass destruction. Humanity became disconnected from morality and ethics.

As the reality of mass genocide and the Holocaust became widely known, it challenged deeply held beliefs and created an existential and spiritual crisis for many people of faith. How was it possible to believe in God after Auschwitz and Treblinka? Heschel never wavered in his belief in God, but these historic realities profoundly challenged his life’s work. How could Germany, which had been the center of scientific inquiry and cosmopolitan culture, so quickly transform from light into darkness? How could an otherwise enlightened civilization suddenly turn into such a morally depraved and brutal country? As Zelizer explains, “Heschel spent the rest of his life trying to make sense of this, wrestling with the question of whether and how Judaism—and all religion—could offer the key toward preventing this kind of mass injustice from rearing its head again.”

Heschel believed that societal indifference, more than anything, had allowed the evil of Hitler and Nazism to take root in German society. Advances in science, economics, and modern technology did not produce a peaceful world. Economic advancement and self-interest surpassed humanity’s need for lives filled with meaning and purpose. Heschel partly blamed religious leaders and institutions for the resulting spiritual crisis. In God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1955), Heschel wrote:

When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.

God in Search of Man expanded upon Heschel’s thesis that God needed human partners to achieve a just world. But how are individuals and societies to deal with the problem of evil? The “essential predicament of man,” according to Heschel:

…has assumed a peculiar urgency in our time, living as we do in a civilization where factories were established in order to exterminate millions of men, women and children; where soap was made of human flesh. What have we done to make such crimes possible? What are we doing to make such crimes impossible?

To answer these questions, Heschel looked to the Hebrew Prophets, who embodied a relationship between God and humankind essential to a functioning moral universe, in which indifference to injustice was unacceptable. In The Prophets (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1962), Heschel argued that the Hebrew Prophets refused to be neutral when witnessing evil in the world. Societal indifference was the root of how something like the Holocaust could happen. To “remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done unto other people . . . is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous.”

The Prophets became one of Heschel’s most influential books and impacted the thinking of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and fellow civil rights activists. It helped them to combine their theology with real-world activism. Heschel himself became more actively engaged in the affairs of humanity. In Selma in 1965, when Heschel locked arms with Ralph Bunche and the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, with King close by and three thousand peaceful protestors behind them, they shared a feeling of interfaith solidarity. The progressive religious community was on the side of the protestors, leading a movement for justice and morality.

From left: John Lewis, unidentified nun, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Ralph Bunche, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Fred Shuttlesworth

Heschel’s religious beliefs influenced his understanding of social justice and his pursuit of social justice helped shape his understanding of religion. It was what moved him into the world of protest and political activism. It was why he helped lead a progressive interfaith movement in support of civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War, why he worked to free Soviet Jewry, and why he willingly engaged in a dialogue with the Pope during the Second Vatican Council to convince the Catholic Church to condemn antisemitism and recognize the “religious dignity of the Jews.”

Heschel believed the purpose of religion was not to seek God’s salvation but to offer human beings moral guidance in a perilous world. And it came with expectations. “What is expected of me? What is demanded of me?” he asked. Perhaps for world humanity this was too much to ask. But if collectively we ever choose to accept the task of making the world worthy of redemption, it is difficult to imagine a world in which obvious injustices go unaddressed, or millions of people acquiesce in mass murder and destruction.

It would be easy to dismiss Heschel’s thesis in an age when belief in God is ridiculed and organized religion has lost credibility in most liberal intellectual circles. But to do so is to miss what he was trying to say. In a talk he gave in April 1963, Heschel explained that the task of religion “is to cultivate distrust for violence and lies, sensitivity to other people’s suffering, the love of peace. God has a stake in the life of every man.” Philosophy and religion, to be relevant, must offer wisdom to live by. “There is no human being who is not moved by the question, Am I needed?”

As a rabbi and theologian, Heschel believed that an openness to God, a sense of awe and wonder for the universe, and the ability to “feel the hidden love and wisdom of all things” would help lead humanity to more and deeper understanding, kindness, justice, and peace. To our more modern ears, this may sound naïve and unrealistic. But when societies do not have healthy alternatives, when people lose a sense of principled morality and spiritual connectedness, whether through organized religion or not, people inevitably gravitate toward something that is more authoritarian by nature. This has been true throughout history. Even if we focus on developing a purely secular sense of meaning and purpose, of love for our neighbor and compassion for human suffering, the result is a better, more just world.

Heschel died in 1972. Were he alive today, he may have found himself on the margins of society. But to understand Heschel’s life and legacy, and to read his writings and speeches, is to peer into the heart of a genuine zaddik, a holy man. Just as he spoke prophetically for civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War, Heschel could have offered much needed moral leadership today on the tragic conflict in Gaza, the authoritarian overreach of the Trump administration, the cruel and unlawful crackdown on immigrants, the abandonment of foreign aid, the disregard for the environment, and the dismissal of morality in the affairs of the nation.

Heschel saw politics in moral terms and addressed what he perceived as a spiritual crisis facing the modern world. He saw the violence and injustice all around us as a direct outgrowth of an emptiness in the human spirit. But amid anguish and despair, he taught that the human capacity for goodness and love can repair a broken world. The nation urgently needs Heschel’s moral guidance now more than ever. “The choice,” wrote Heschel, “is to love together or to perish together. Let the love of life have the final word.”