What would Ruth Bader Ginsburg do?
In the past few days many accolades have been said about the diminutive legal icon who in her quiet repose demonstrated what it means to become a better part of ourselves. Ruth Bader Ginsburg unassumingly went about her business to do the highest order that a individual human can do for themselves and others: she served her community that said natural law and upholding the values of the U. S. Constitution is your right and here is my opinion or dissent in a pragmatic and understandable rationale.
Ruth Ginsburg’s “self evident truth” resonates for many of us who believe in the decency of logic and in particularly the right for women to be treated with dignity and be equally recognized for their capabilities. She moved that bar that much higher so that both women and men could more clearly comprehend the reasoning of why “all people are created equal.” If we can amend the Constitution why not the Bill of Rights? These were not meant to be historical rigid documents, but ongoing fluid concepts and philosophy based on a foundation that we as a people can create an equitable society in the pursuit to fulfill our potential. As Madison said, in Article 51 of the Federalist Papers, “If angels were to govern men ( pardon, a product of his time), neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” As much as I am certain she would dismiss this characterization, Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg was one of those angels who helped us to understand, with her superb intellect, what we know is right in our hearts.
I clearly remember the nation’s angst over the tragic deaths of Martin Luther King
Jr., civil rights activists and John F. and Robert Kennedy. However, when my wife read me the news that Ruth Ginsburg had passed, I became enveloped in a kind of deep sadness I rarely experience. For me, Ruth was a Brooklyn Jewish sister who could have easily grown up in my neighborhood. In her teenage years, Ginsburg had an experience where she was not able to participate in the official mourning of her mother’s death merely because she was a woman. For a while that moral incongruence caused her to step back from her religious background. I could relate. I too was theologically ambivalent and nonobservant for various reasons. I was once asked if I went to synagogue. I said I wasn’t that kind of Jew. He asked what kind of Jew are you? I said the Darwinist kind (agnostic if that makes you feel more comfortable). I’m sure Ruth would have chuckled with a nod of
Maimonides understanding. Later on in collaboration with Rabbi Lauren Holtzberg, Ginsburg wrote, “The Heroic and Visionary Women of Passover,” that highlighted the roles of five women in that biblical saga. “These women had a vision leading out of darkness shrouding the world. They were women of action, prepared to defy authority to make the vision a reality bathed in the light of the day.” Early in my life I found that the inequity of women’s representation in the faith I was brought up in, in any faith, always seemed inherently and diametrically opposed with my beliefs. But either directly or indirectly the work of Ginsburg’s legal advocacy, has thankfully and rightfully changed as witnessed in our own community that a woman is a head Rabbi.
Her opinions and dissents seemed to be aligned with a contemporary vision that until minorities and women’s lives matter, all lives will matter. That certain humans are not just free or poorly paid fodder to be used and disposed of. If we are to realize the arduous and continuing experiment of our modern Magna Carta, we must take on the difficult task to prevail over willful ignorance and intolerance.
Law Professor, Court Attorney, and Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s courage and long hours of self sacrifice represented a quiet honor and dignity that transcended beyond one’s personal ego. Like the ad for a well known athlete, the rallying motto this election, and perhaps in our lives that we should aspire to is, “Be Like Ruth!”
Her legacy has inspired us and shall not perish from this earth.