If I were to have responded to this question as little as two days ago, I would have had a totally different focus for this response.
But with the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the commentaries on her life and legal career, I think that what follows are my lessons and what I am grateful for to TBE and fellow students in many of the classes and programs I have been fortunate enough to participate in.
I listened to Jon Meacham commenting on Justice Ginsburg and her religious heritage today..
His commentary focused on the contrasts between the legacy of Justices Scalia and Ginsburg. His summation was that while Scalia saw the wisdom and was guided by looking back, Ginsburg always was looking around her and toward a better future. The religious association was that she was clearly guided by the Golden Rule of Jesus which he mentioned had already been clearly stated centuries earlier in Leviticus:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
From my perspective, while that is the fundamental message of equality, there is much more from a Jewish perspective that she embodied.
As I have been so fortunate to learn from Torah study with Rabbi Ullman, Talmud study with Rabbis Sherman and Mitchell as well as learning about the evolution of Halakhah with Rabbi Samuels and so many other classes and courses, even as far back as the Tannaim and Amoraim, the Law/ Torah was interpreted in many ways by many wise people and continues to be in historical and contemporary Responsa.
The law needs to be interpreted in light of the real world, not imposed on modernity.
To my thinking, these factors, the statement in Leviticus and Rabbinic interpretation really describe the judicial philosophy of this iconic individual.
She will be sorely missed by many and certainly by me.
May her philosophy be a guide for the future of jurisprudence as well as the way we each relate to one another.
L’shanah tovah u’metukah
