When the kids were little, we used to take them to visit my in-laws for July 4. My (very wonderful) parents-in-law live in Brighton Beach, just a few blocks away from the beach and Coney Island boardwalk fun. The real highlight, however, lay in the opposite direction. As dusk turned to dark, we watched as dozens and then scores of simultaneous fireworks shows would bloom and burst before our eyes. It would start slowly – at first, while it was still light, just one or two firecrackers from a distant lot. Then, more would join – a small show at a park lasting several minutes – “Look, there, to the left!” “Over there, straight ahead!” We could see from a distance the beachfront shows off towards the coastline, and the big show on the Hudson River, depending on the year. All far enough below or out toward the horizon so that the noise would not reach us. But in the siren-pierced cityscape of Brooklyn, what would unfold was the magic of thousands of people celebrating the holiday in backyards and parks, on street corners and rooftops. Some right up close and others far away. Some displays were professional – from that perch you can see far off the Manhattan skyline, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and the Atlantic shoreline – but those were outnumbered by the smaller, home-grown variety. All colors, all shapes, no coordinated timing. Just lots of people doing their own thing, in their own way, but also together, a celebration of country and freedom and expression and exhilaration of all sorts.

There is something about that image that I find deeply moving: the image of all those exuberant, short-lived sparkles lighting up the sky and then dying out, each having their moment. Each lit by someone or a group of someones, each with its own story and flavor. None particularly spectacular on its own and also each spectacular on its own. Watching from a distance, we would be filled with the sense of greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts, the sense of being part of or at least witnessing something grander than what anyone on the ground could grasp.

There is wonder to this story, and exhilaration, and awe. There is also humility, the knowledge that each of us is nothing more and also nothing less than a spectacular firework brought to life through the imagination and dreams of others. Each of us has just a short time here, to delight and light up the darkness, to provide others with a chance to come together and express wonder and joy. It’s not going to last long. And we won’t really know if we are a starburst or a sparkler, green or red or gold, until it’s happening and nearly over. We won’t know who was watching, what forces were whispering blessings and oohing and aahing over us from afar.

In his collection Tales of the Hasidim, published in 1961 but collected from the decades before that, Rabbi Martin Buber shared the story of the Rabbi Simcha Bunem, an 18th century Hasidic rabbi. It was (by now famously) said that he carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. One was inscribed with the saying from the Talmud: “For my sake the world was created.” On the other he wrote a phrase from our father Abraham, from the book of Genesis: “I am but dust and ashes.” The trick, he taught, was knowing which slip to take out when.

As this country wakes up to its 248th Independence Day, we need all of it: the exuberance, the excitement, the celebration. The sense that each of us is here for a brief bright moment and so we must vote and march and advocate for all the holy things that need to happen l’taken olam, to heal the world, that the world should be a little brighter because we were each here. And also: we need that sense of distance, of watching something larger than us. We need to remember that our little explosions are after all not very much in the grand scheme of things, and that when we feel anxious or overwhelmed it’s not all on any one of us. This week, in the aftermath of the presidential debate and watching hurricanes move in and wars continue, we need to remember that part, too.

In the early 20th century, there was a movement to make July 4 “safe and sane.” That was literally the name of the movement: the Safe and Sane Movement. July 4 had become dangerous from all of the fireworks and Roman Candles and cannonballs and other explosive-related celebrations; tetanus from the shrapnel from the fireworks and other explosives killed thousands of people each year. (The mayor of Chicago, for example, issued an executive order in 1903 that prohibited not only fireworks and gunpowder, but also “the placing upon the car tracks of any street railway… any torpedo, bomb, or other thing containing any substance of an explosive nature.” Apparently, that was a thing. In case we thought modern gun control issues were without precedent.) I imagine many of us would agree that this movement to return our nation to safety and sanity would be apt in this moment of national life, too. Beyond the national, though, or perhaps riffing of it, of what it does to our insides: I turn to the personal. The inner world we each secretly hold. May you be safe. May you be sane. May you shine bright, burning and delighting all around you. And may you sparkle, knowing you are part of something much larger, something made brighter because of you are here. At Oheb Shalom, in the Jewish community, in this country which has been so good to the Jews these 248 years, in this world.