We may strike blows against terrorist networks, but if we do not cleanse ourselves of the instability and intolerance that fuels extremism, our own freedom will eventually be endangered. We may no longer live in fear of global annihilation, but if we refuse to free ourselves of our own nuclear weapons, we are not truly safe.  We may enjoy a standard of living that is the envy of the world, but so long as hundreds of millions endure the agony of an empty stomach or the anguish of unemployment, we can not truly prosper. 

Our values call upon us to care about the lives of people we will never meet.  When we lead with our hopes instead of our fears, we do things that no other nations can do, no other nations will do.  So we have to lift up our eyes today and consider the day of peace with justice that our generation wants for this world. 

I'd suggest that peace with justice begins with the example we set here at home, for we know from our own histories that intolerance breeds injustice.  Whether it's based on race, or religion, gender or sexual orientation, we are stronger when all our people -- no matter who they are or what they look like -- are granted opportunity, and when our wives and our daughters have the same opportunities as our husbands and our sons.

When we respect the faiths practiced in our churches and synagogues, our mosques and our temples, we're more secure.  When we welcome the immigrant with his talents or her dreams, we are renewed. When we stand up for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and treat their love and their rights equally under the law, we defend our own liberty as well.  We are more free when all people can pursue their own happiness. And as long as lines exist in our hearts that separate us from those who don’t look like us, or think like us, or worship as we do, then we're going to have to work harder to wash the divisions that exist outside of our hearts away. 


haggadah Section: Urchatz
Source: Pres. Barack Obama