Rest In Peace, RBG

As I suspect it did all Americans, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death took me by surprise. I knew she wasn’t in good health, of course: that much was public knowledge. But I didn’t understand how close to the end she was; perhaps she herself also didn’t. But regardless of who knew what and when they knew it, her passing constitutes a major loss for the Court and for the nation. In many ways, she exemplified the Jewish ideal of a life devoted fully and wholly to the pursuit of justice. For Jewish Americans, therefore, her loss was, if not more consequential than for other citizens, then at least more personal.

I will say, however, that I was surprised by the announcement that Justice Ginsburg’s body would lie in state at not one but two locations: for two days at the Supreme Court itself and then for a third day at the U.S. Capitol (where she will become the first woman ever to be awarded that posthumous honor).

Obviously, these are both huge honors that not everybody gets. And that’s really to say the very least: since 1852, for example, when Senator Henry Clay’s body was put on display in the Capitol, the honor of lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda has only been accorded to thirty-six individuals, including twelve U.S. Presidents and four Unknown Soldiers. (The honor is automatically offered to deceased Presidents and former Presidents, but has to be accepted by the family of the deceased—which is why the bodies neither of Harry S. Truman nor of Richard Nixon lay in state in the Rotunda.) Otherwise, the honor is on offer solely by congressional resolution or, if that is not practically possible, then by unanimous approval by the congressional leadership. And then there is also the slightly lesser honor of “lying in honor,” as opposed to “lying in state,” a distinction with, as far as I can see, only two specific differences other than in name: the bodies of people who lie in state are guarded by an honor guard of five, each representing a specific branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, while the bodies of people who lie in honor are guarded by officers of the U.S. Capitol Police Force; and those who lie in state, like Justice Ginsburg, are laid out upon a catafalque originally constructed for the funeral of Abraham Lincoln, while those who lie in honor are set out on alternate biers. For the record, Justice Ginsburg will not be the first woman at all to have her body on display in the Capitol; that honor already went to Rosa Parks. But Rosa Parks lay in honor, while Ruth Bader Ginsburg will lie in state. In any event, Justice Ginsburg will certainly be the first Jewish American to lie in state at the Capitol. And she will only be the second Supreme Court Justice offered that posthumous tribute, the other being William Howard Taft who was also a former President when he died in 1930. (She will therefore be the only Supreme Court Justice who wasn’t also a former President to be awarded the honor.)

The whole idea of delaying burial by putting the body of a deceased individual (even inside a casket) on display for days and days could not run more counter to Jewish tradition, which calls for a speedy burial followed by a week of mourning. And how much the more so when Yom Kippur, which will end the shiva week no matter how much or little of it has happened, is only days away. When the actual burial will take place has not been made public, only that Justice Ginsburg will be interred “next week” at Arlington National Cemetery next to her husband Martin, an Army veteran. (She will thus become the fourteenth Supreme Court justice to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, joining, among others, Earl Warren, William Rehnquist, President Taft, and Warren Burger.)

That she personally chose not to be buried in a Jewish cemetery didn’t surprise me—that die was cast when Justice Ginsburg’s late husband was buried there in 2010—but also stirred up some strange feelings in me, which have now installed themselves next to my feelings about the whole “lying in state” thing. Of course, these matters are themselves screen-issues that serve merely as the outer face of the inner question they mask: the degree to which the Jews of the United States are essentially Jewish Americans (whose bodies lie in state if they earn the right and who should more than reasonably agree if they earn the great honor of burial at Arlington) or American Jews (whose funerals should be scheduled for as soon as possible after they die and who should then be laid to rest in Jewish cemeteries among the other men and women of the House of Israel).

Is there a level of public service at which the good individuals do somehow frees them from the obligation to bow to the traditions of their own people? Queen Esther agreed to spend her days—and all of them, not just the ones told about in the book that bears her name—she agreed to spend her life as the wife of a Persian emperor and we endlessly valorize her courage, her daring, and her decisive pluck in the face of a looming catastrophe that she herself could possibly have avoided entirely but which would have surely resulted in the annihilation of Persian Jewry. Surely, we’re not going to carp about whether or not she had a kosher kitchen installed in the palace or a mikveh! But is the analogy truly apt? Justice Ginsburg was not, after all, set in place by kismet to rescue the Jews of America from some latter-day Haman! Still, she did find her remarkable way onto the nation’s highest court, where she devoted her entire career to the pursuit of justice, equity, and fairness. And she brought only renown to the Jewish community, who looked on her as an example of someone who rose to her position of great power not by hiding her Jewishness or dissembling in its regard, let alone by denying it, but by speaking openly and proudly of herself as a Jewish woman. She wasn’t exactly an American Esther, but in her own way she paved the path forward for American Jews—and particularly for American Jewish women—to think of no level of public service as beyond their station or beyond their grasp.

Back in 1988, I admired Joseph Lieberman intensely for his refusal to campaign on Shabbat when campaigning to represent Connecticut in the Senate. But when he himself moved away from that position in 2000 to become Al Gore’s running mate, I found myself unable to respect him less. Sometimes, you can control the moment and sometimes the moment controls you!

I suppose the expected response for a rabbi would be to decry the fact that Justice Ginsburg’s body will be put on public display for three long days until she is finally laid to rest in a place that is, at the same time, our nation’s most revered cemetery and a non-Jewish place of burial. And, at least on some level, I do feel that way and wish that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s final appearance in this world had been in keeping with the very Jewish tradition regarding which she so often spoke warmly and, no doubt, wholly sincerely. But I am also—and I say this fully aware of the paradox in my feelings—I also feel enormously proud to think of her casket resting on the Lincoln catafalque in the most august setting America has on offer and, yes, to think of her finding her final resting place among the greatest political, juridical, and military leaders of our nation.

One of the prices we pay for maintaining the integrity of our beliefs is having to endure the discrepancy, illogic, and paradox that come from sincerely holding beliefs that do not fit at all well together. Are there people the various components of whose worldviews are so well integrated that they simply harbor no mutually-contradictory or -incompatible beliefs? I suppose there might be, but I myself am not among them. And so, at the same time I am repulsed by the whole notion of delaying a Jewish person’s burial so that his or her remains can be put on display for admirers to admire and for viewers to view, I am also filled with pride at the various posthumous honors paid to Justice Ginsburg and I find myself able to mourn her passing without any ambivalence at all. She was a giant of the law and, at the same time, a Jewish American who exemplified the finest American and Jewish values. May her memory be a blessing for us all. And may she rest in peace.