Sometimes, all the talk about religious freedom and liberty doesn’t sink in. After an advocacy day in Annapolis on behalf of non-public schools, IPA Deputy Director Howie Beigelman and Legislative Fellow Ari Lustig took a detour on the return trip and stopped at the US Naval Academy.

There, in the new Jewish chapel, made of Jerusalem stone, they prayed mincha, the afternoon service.

The chapel houses a Torah scroll from a destroyed European shtetl. And along with quotes from Genesis and Psalms, the chapel excerpts George Washington’s famous letter to Jewish Americans that the United States will “give to bigotry no sanction” a fact testified to more by the presence of the chapel and its prominence as much as by words and sentiments.

While praying in the chapel, Howie and Ari came across the Midshipman’s Prayer, a telling and touching petition for strength and guidance. You can read it here.