Course · 5 Lessons ·
As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik examines key moments in the nation’s history—from the revolutionary era to World War II—through a set of iconic images that have shaped the American imagination. Through paintings and symbols both familiar and forgotten, Rabbi Soloveichik explores how Americans have understood themselves, and how visual culture has transmitted that understanding across generations.
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Can a single painting capture the American Revolution? John Trumbull’s “Declaration of Independence” attempts just that. In this lecture, Rabbi Soloveichik examines what the painting reveals about the Founding Fathers and America itself. Through a dual focus on Jefferson and Adams, Rabbi Soloveichik suggests that the painting illuminates the era’s dynamic tensions—reason and revelation, individuality and union—and offers insight into America itself: a work of genius, and still very much a work in progress.
Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware” is one of the most recognizable images of the American Revolution, yet also one of its most contested for its historical liberties. In this lecture, Rabbi Soloveichik examines the painting’s famous inaccuracies and what they reveal about America. Focusing on the diverse crew behind Washington—black, Native American, immigrant, and colonist—Rabbi Soloveichik suggests that the painting is less a portrait of a single hero than of the nation itself: a fragile, unlikely coalition bound together by a shared mission.
Alonzo Chappel’s “The Last Hours of Abraham Lincoln” may be ahistorical, but it’s also a revealing meditation on leadership. In this lecture, Rabbi Soloveichik argues that the painting captures an essential quality of Lincoln’s greatness: his biblical approach to leadership. In contrast to models of leadership that elevate the ruler above the people, Lincoln demonstrated how authority is inseparable from empathy, listening, and responsibility—a vision best expressed in the Hebrew Bible.
In his 1941 State of the Union address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt articulated a vision of human freedom consisting of four specific liberties: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Norman Rockwell translated these ideals into four paintings. Strikingly, in his painting “Freedom from Fear,” rather than portraying FDR’s sweeping utopian promise, Rockwell presents a more grounded, intimate scene: parents tucking their children safely into bed. Rabbi Soloveichik, examining “Freedom from Fear,” asks whether true freedom from fear can exist in political life, or if it belongs only to the realm of art.
A single, dramatic moment of soldiers raising the flag captures both the sacrifice and unity required to secure victory in World War II.
This course is generously sponsored by Denise and Camillo Santomero in honor of Rabbi Meir Soloveichik’s work.
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