Sixty-three years ago, President John Kennedy famously proclaimed, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Recently, I visited West Point to speak at “Warriors Weekend” – which gathered Jewish cadets from all the armed services of the United States. Filled with young people who were asking that very question, we gathered in the chapel. The small building features a Torah saved from the Holocaust and the names of people who heroically served, and together, we talked about Judaism, about life, and about commitment.

As I spoke to the men and women in uniform I recalled the beginning of this week’s parasha: Ch. 26:1,2: “When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take some of the first fruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket.” In other words, when you inherit the land, the first thing you must do is give something in gratitude for what you have inherited.

American law is built around rights. Jewish law is built around obligations. Each has its place and worth. Yet when either becomes the only criteria, society falls apart. Throughout the history of Jewish law, there has always been consideration for what rights the person has and what freedoms under the law obtain. For too many Americans, however, the concept of “what I am free to do” has become almost the sole way they understand their relationship to America.

For a variety of reasons, volunteering in America has dropped steady over the last several years, and charitable giving has also declined. Yet many of us are still called, as the Torah instructs, to help in myriad ways. Standing before those cadets, I felt a renewed sense of the inspiration in their commitment to a cause.

Those of us who are engaged in the fight against prejudice and hatred understand that to engage in this campaign requires deep commitment to the same ideals as those young people. We ask – what can we do for our nation and for our people? The answer? As the prophet explained it three thousand years ago, we seek a world in which “Everyone may sit beneath their own vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.” (Micah 4:4).