ברוך דין האמת.  Baruch Dayan HaEmet.  One of the (many) peculiarities in Judaism is our tradition about death and mourning.  The statement at the head of the paragraph is what we say upon hearing of a death;  Blessed is the one true Judge.  Yes, in the middle of the trauma of death, we are blessing the Supreme Being.

But, since my family ancestors have typically died on holidays, I know that fact- death on a holiday- involves further traditions.  Dying on the Rosh Hashana High Holiday invokes many thoughts.  Tzadikim- persons of great righteousness- are taken on this holiday.  The thought is that Hashem holds back their death until the last moment, to afford the world the best of their lives.

That is what occurred this past Friday night.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who reveled in her 87 years of life despite cancer and other issues, died in her Washington, DC home surrounded by her family.  May her memory be a blessing.

Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated high school at 15 and excelled at Harvard Law- but due to the illness of her husband, she actually finished her degree at Columbia.  She was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court (SCOTUS); Sandra Day O’Connor was the first.  Justice Ginsburg was the eight Jewish Supreme Court Justice.

RBG, as she became known, might have been a native Jewish New Yorker (from the Flatbush section of Brooklyn), but she lacked the mile-a-minute speech velocity that is typical of folks like us.  One would always notice the long spaces of time as she pondered the perfect words to express her thoughts.  She was as fastidious in her written communications.

When Judge Ginsburg was awarded the Genesis Prize in 2018, she intoned she was “a judge, born, raised, and proud of being a Jew”. Ginsburg elocuted that her “heritage as a Jew and my occupation as a judge fit together symmetrically. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of Jewish history and Jewish tradition. I take pride in and draw strength from my heritage, as signs in my chambers attest: a large silver mezuzah on my door post, gift from the Shulamith School for Girls in Brooklyn; on three walls, in artists’ renditions of Hebrew letters, the command from Deuteronomy: ‘Zedek, zedek, tirdof’ – ‘Justice, justice shall you pursue.’ Those words are ever-present reminders of what judges must do that they ‘may thrive.’”(2004 Address at the US Holocaust Memorial on Holocaust Memorial Day)

That pasuk (sentence) from Dvarim (Deuteronomy) when translated into English misses the nuance.   It says that Justice alone is not enough- there are many kinds of decisions.  The Tora stresses that the ethic (musar) of Justice must be included- in other words, both the ends and the means must be just. That was the driving force in Ginsburg’s life.

Ginsburg’s vision of tikkun olam (repairing the world) meant one must “repair tears in our societies, reduce intolerance, and promote understanding”.  She stressed equality for us all:  “It has always been that girls should have the same opportunity to dream, to aspire and achieve — to do whatever their God-given talents enable them to do — as boys . . . That’s what it’s all about: Women and men, working together, should help make the society a better place than it is now.”

May her memory be a blessing.

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