Judges reflect on Judaism's influence on justice

By Eric Fingerhut
Washington Jewish Week

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- "JUSTICE, JUSTICE, YOU SHALL PURSUE....” Those words from the book of Deuteronomy serve as somewhat of a motto for Jews involved in the legal profession, as a panel of federal judges and the U.S. solicitor general recounted on recently at the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists’ annual meeting in Washington.

All said, in varying ways, that the Jewish view of justice, as set forth in the Torah and other Jewish sources, has guided their outlook on the law and how it should be interpreted and implemented.

Solicitor General Seth Waxman, whose job it is to argue the federal government’s position on cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, said that in having a “Department of Justice,” not a “ministry of laws” like other countries, the United States demonstrates that it understands the concept of justice as outlined in Judaism. “No one pursues laws. ... Justice is the ideal we are commanded to pursue,” he said.

That concept of justice is outlined in a midrash Waxman cited. It says that the world could not exist if G-d ruled only by strict laws; otherwise, the first transgression would bring about the end of the world. But if G-d only ruled by compassion, there would be too much evil in the world. Combine the two, and one gets what Waxman called the “essence of Judaism” — the marriage of strict law and compassion.

That same ideal is set forth in Hillel’s famous words: “Do not do unto others that which you would not have them do unto you — That is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary.” Waxman said that while that phrase is a “distillation of Judaism,” it also is “an expression of justice in its loftiest form.”

That is why, Waxman said, the solicitor general’s office credo has always been not to achieve “victory” in a case, but to achieve justice, and that “the government wins its point whenever justice is done in its courts.”

The judges who followed Waxman on the panel, “Judging and Judaism: The Influence of a Judge’s Jewish Background and Jewish Values on the Adjudicative Process,” all seemed to agree implicitly or explicitly with Waxman’s view of justice through a Jewish filter.

Judge Avern Cohn, a member of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan since 1979, said that he believed many Jewish judges, particularly those judges from his generation and older (Cohn graduated from law school in 1949), share certain qualities.

Those characteristics include a commitment to social justice, a sensitivity to civil liberties, compassion for the poor and less fortunate, a skepticism of the permanence of precedent and “a knowledge that the concepts of liberty, equality and due process are not static but fluid, and change with time and new conditions.”

Norma Shapiro, a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania since 1978, said that in addition to teaching one to bring mercy and compassion to the law, Judaism also teaches some other important attributes for sitting on the bench. Those include the “importance of being humble, not arrogant” and the “importance of moderation,” since, Shapiro explained, the Jewish positions on many social and medical issues “aren’t all black and white” but often a careful balance.

Shapiro also said that she felt an obligation to represent the Jewish community and to try to “be a judge that Jewish people feel would honor the religion.” She does not keep court in session late on a Friday and will never schedule anything on Shabbes or Jewish holidays. “You have an obligation to show respect for your religion. If you don’t, who else will?”

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, appointed in 1998 to be a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said his decisions come from “many threads” that weave through him, some arising from his Orthodox Judaism, some from other places. But those threads are “not easily unwound,” he said.

“Judaism has nothing to do with what kind of judge I am and everything to do with the judge I am,” Hellerstein said, illustrating how he could never pinpoint exactly what led him to his judicial views. But he discussed three cases in which he seemed to do what Waxman said was the essence of Judaism — mix compassion with strict law, or pursue tzedek (justice) in a world of mishpatim (laws).

Forty-six people attended Sunday’s meeting, which also featured a panel discussion on civil rights in Israel and an update on recent developments in Holocaust survivor litigation. The IAJLJ American section, which represents the American Jewish legal community and defends Jewish interests and human rights in the United States and abroad, also elected Jerome J. Shestack of Philadelphia as its next president, replacing Washington lawyer and JWR columnist Neal Sher.

Eric Fingerhut is a staff writer at the Washington Jewish Week. Comment by clicking here.

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