Parshat Behar introduces Yovel, the Jubilee year. Every fifty years the shofar is sounded and we are commanded, “U’krasem dror ba’aretz l’chol yoshveha” – “You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (Vayikra 25:10). Those exact words are etched on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, the physical symbol of the American founding.

The Torah does not treat dror as a slogan. It is a recurring national reset – debts forgiven, land restored, families redeemed. It is the Torah’s great “no” to permanent servitude. The American experiment took the Liberty Bell’s verse seriously enough to enshrine “all men are created equal” in the Declaration and to fight a war that ended chattel slavery. That is dror – liberty proclaimed to all inhabitants.

What some voices now offer is the mirror image of the very Critical Race Theory they rightly criticize. Call it The Other CRT: Confederate Rehabilitation Theory. Matt Walsh’s recent project and Ben Shapiro’s related commentary try to launder the Confederacy as “states’ rights,” “brave soldiers,” and “noble Lee defending his home.” This is not American conservatism: it is Confederate ideology........

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