Search This Blog

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The Rabbi of Goray and Justice Scalia

I was reading about Justice Scalia in KeepMedia this morning.
http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/USATODAY/2006/10/16/1903375?ba=a&bi=16&bp=64
A feisty Justice Antonin Scalia defended his conservative view of a rigid interpretation of the Constitution at an unusual forum Sunday, the American Civil Liberties Union's annual meeting... Scalia, whose "originalist" theory asserts that the Constitution should be interpreted in its 18th-century context, believes in a limited right of privacy. He is against the right to abortion, which was first declared by the Supreme Court in 1973. Such a question, he says, should be up to the people and their elected legislators. "I apply the limitations on American democracy that the American people have adopted," he said. The rights of homosexual people, too, he said, should be left to the people rather than courts.
I wrote a comment:
If I remember correctly, many Jewish women from all over the East made the trek to Goray in Poland because the rabbi of Goray was known far and wide to be more inclined to bend when dealing with divorce.Some rabbis were strict, some were lenient. If you wanted strict construction, you went to Lublin where the strict rabbi resided. Else, to Goray.There is a difference in the hearts, not in the Torah.
I have exactly 3 concerns here:
First, the business of putting oneself in a context that existed 300 years ago is an extremely iffy proposition. Why should things - which today in the present are not clear - suddenly become clear by putting them back 300 years? (Actually, this does work and it is effected by being ignorant of 99% of the details that existed in a particular situation 300 years ago. Thus, we are kept from a swamp of details and have clarity, but not informed clarity.)
Furthermore, whose definition of the context does one use? Which historian do we invoke?
I suppose I mean to say: If I can not believe my own eyes (and heart), what makes me think I can do better with John Adams' eyes and heart? Thus, I cannot use my own writing, but somebody else's writings, preferably someone who lived 300 years ago. I may use his writings, but writings do not make me totally privy to the context in which he lived. They DO NOT make me totally in context since -as mentioned above - I cannot know the vast majority of the detail 300 years ago.
How do you deal with totally new situations which not only did not exist 300 years ago, but were not even conceptualized 300 years ago? Obviously, there must be a further system of analogical reasoning or some other scheme by which we put ourselves into context ( which does not even exist for the new situation ) and reason by analogy and metaphor and parallelisms to what actially did exist. And it is right here that the pretense to Historical Context falls totally apart.
Second, I assume the learned Justice is opposed to slavery and other forms of indenture.Why, then, are the rights of homosexual people asserted to be best left to the people, not the courts?
Slavery was left to the people. The highest court in the land upheld the institution. There was a radical cure effected by President Lincoln. At present, homosexuals are second-class citizens and find themselves bereft of basic right the rest of the population takes for granted. AND it is the ancient context of the slavery clauses in the Constitution that led our country to endure slavery and a similar context takes Justice Scalia down the same type of road.
Third, Justice Scalia is quoted as saying:

"If you fall in love with an evolving Constitution," he said, "do not think that it will evolve in only one direction." 
 
Is this a threat? I mean, is he saying that if I embrace a Constitution evolving liberally, beware! for it may also evolve conservatively and mothers get your kids off the streets then!
I never thought that evolution is only in one direction. It is just like going to Goray. Is the Torah strict or is it lenient? The people who journeyed to Goray to speak to the Rabbi did not ask the question. For them, the Torah was the Torah. But how does the Torah reflect itself in the world of men? In their hearts. If their hearts are merciful, the Torah is merciful. If their hearts are hard, the Torah is hard.
Justice Scalia has no faith in the hearts of his fellow citizens. He must flee back to a paradigm of a land that existed 300 years ago, a land which cannot be but an image devoid of the greatest part of its almost infinite detail.
 --

No comments: