Yizkor 2020 –What We can Learn from Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The outpouring of emotion and adulation for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who passed away on erev Rosh Hashana has been remarkable. What is it about this petite Jewish woman that has touched such a nerve in people around the country? Many respect and admire the woman who broke so many barriers and broke so many glass ceilings. Others lament the passing of a champion of cherished causes, and for her stance on a number of issues – from abortion to immigration to health care to women’s rights and gender equality.
Her tenacity and determination, her grit, fighting bouts with cancer and whatever obstacle she encountered, regardless of what she was up against are inspiring traits. Julie Cohen, director of the documentary “RBG,” said. “If she got rejected, if she got discriminated against, if she got dismissively pushed aside, her response to that was always just to push right past that.”
We can learn a great deal from how she lived her life, and the traits of tenacity, humility and integrity that are so endearing as well as her commitment to justice and fairness.
We Jews take obvious pride not just in her being the first Jewish woman to be a Supreme Court justice, but that she was a proud Jew who did not hesitate to let others know she was Jewish and of the impact Jewish teachings have on her. Her office had a mezuzah, as well as a wall-hanging with the injunction from the Torah, “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof: Justice, justice shall you pursue”.
We can also learn from her relationship with Justice Antonin Scalia, someone who many of the very same people who admired her vilified. We may wonder how it was possible for two so diametrically ideologically opposed individuals to get along so well. For most of us, our friends are individuals who think and see things as we do. Ginsburg and Scalia found a way to stay true to their ideologies without letting their differences interfere in their relationship and ability to get along.
Justice Scalia explained that he didn’t attack people, just the ideas that he disagreed with. He explained, “Good people can have stupid ideas.” The thing I find most remarkable about this anecdote is that Justice Ginsburg was the one who recounted the story, even though it was self-deprecating.
When Scalia didn’t have room for a promising Columbia Law School graduate who wanted to clerk for him, he called RBG and asked if she would hire him. The young man who was in the mold of Scalia, an “originalist” asked RBG after she hired him why she would want him as a clerk. Her answer was – “To challenge my assumptions.”
Perseverance and resilience, as well as commitment to principles and noble ideals of justice, fairness and equality, devotion to her family, faith and friends, are some of the many qualities we admired in her and why she was so beloved.
I cannot help but think as we turn to Yizkor, that some of us may mourn people with whom we differed, who may have challenged our assumptions.
Ultimately, Yizkor reminds us of our mortality, of the impact we may have on others, and the impact they had on us. It is about continuity and connections. The Yizkor service and memorial prayers we say are not just about mourning, but about memory. It is about our relationship with our departed, and sometimes that can entail coming to terms with those individuals we mourn. .
At this sacred hour, we think about those who were dear to us, our loved ones who are no longer here, who may have imparted values to us, who may have challenged us to be better. We recognize that on occasion, we may have disappointed them, and there may be those who may have disappointed us. Regardless, let us remember them for what they were and what they meant to us, as we turn now to our Yizkor Memorial prayers
Stuart Weinblatt
Yom Kippur
Yizkor 2020
