Forever Helping Others
SUPREME COURT OPINION
Rabbi Roz Mandelberg delivered this sermon on Friday, July 1 at Ohef Sholom Temple.
Jefferson: Democracy’s success depends upon freedom of belief, expression, and practice Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg
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Architect Bernard Spigel died in 1968, leaving a legacy of homes, schools, and other buildings he designed. Today, Spigel Scholars are designing buildings of their own. A scholarship that Bernard’s daughter, LucySpigel Herman, created at the community foundation to honor him helps future architects pay for their education.
Find out how you can leave your mark. Visit LeaveABequest.org 6 | JEWISH NEWS | July 18, 2022 | jewishnewsva.org
wo hundred forty-five years ago, in October 1776, the first General Assembly of our Commonwealth appointed a five-man Committee of Revisors to review the existing laws and redraft them for an independent Virginia. Much like it goes today, primary responsibility was assumed by the three lawyers on the committee, Thomas Jefferson, George Wythe, and Edmund Pendleton; but of the three, Jefferson assumed responsibility for the greater part of the drafting. In 1779, after Jefferson was elected Governor of Virginia, the committee’s catalog of 126 bills was presented to the General Assembly. Throughout his storied career, including serving as president of the United States of America, he considered Bill #82, which became Jefferson’s Statue for Religious Freedom, calling for the separation of church and state, to be one of the top three achievements of his lifetime. You see, for Jefferson, an Enlightenment rationalist, reason had to govern in all areas, including religion. Jefferson explained, and I quote, “For the use of… reason…everyone is responsible to the God who has planted it in his breast, as a light for his guidance, and that, by which alone he will be judged.” Elaborating in a declaration to Benjamin Rush, Jefferson added, regarding religious freedom, “I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man;” any government effort to control religious beliefs is “tyranny over the mind of man.” Politically and practically, Jefferson believed both the Commonwealth and the new nation required complete religious freedom and separation of church and
state. Indeed, given the broad diversity of ethnicities and religions in the 13 colonies, he knew that religious freedom was necessary if the union was to be successful. Without them, he feared, “kings, nobles, and priests” threatened to create a dangerous aristocracy. It wasn’t that Jefferson wasn’t a religious man—he was. But he knew that if our nation imposed one religion’s belief upon others, it would not only be “tyranny over the mind” of those who held other religious beliefs, but also, it would literally destroy everything upon which this melting pot, now salad bowl, nation was established. The very success of our democracy depended upon freedom of belief, expression, and practice. Fast-forward almost 250 years. Can we even imagine what Governor Thomas Jefferson might have to say to Governor Glenn Younkin about his desire to impose restrictions on a women’s right to choose what is best for her physical and mental health!?! What kind of a conversation would President Jefferson be having with Clarence Thomas, whose Supreme Court not only overturned the 50-year precedent of reproductive freedom in its reversal of Roe v. Wade, but also threatens, in his written opinion, to repeal DOMA, marriage equality, as well as contraception? And what of the religious beliefs of Jewish women that are being trampled upon? Judaism absolutely mandates the termination of pregnancies that would harm the physical or mental health of the mother. Even in the most conservative Jewish believers, there are situations where abortion is necessary. That is because the life of the existing human being, the woman, always takes precedence over a fetus. In fact, according to Jewish law,
Rabbi Roz Mandelberg.
a fetus is not a full human life until the baby’s head emerges from the womb and takes its first breath. But I don’t believe this decision is about when life begins, whether at insemination, at conception, or at birth. To me, it is entirely political, a way of controlling women, their beliefs, their aspirations, their very lives. Does this mean we believe that people should be terminating pregnancies as a form of birth control? Of course not. Does this mean that we don’t suffer the loss of a potential life from a miscarriage or, God forbid, stillbirth? Of course not. We grieve those tragic losses for what could have been, for all the hopes and dreams that potential seed of life meant to us. But for the government to force a woman to bear a child against her will is tyranny at its worst. It is tyranny over her mind. It is tyranny over her body. It is tyranny over her spirit. And, as Jefferson predicted, it threatens to destroy our democracy. And it is only the beginning. We are already seeing infighting within states and
