RBG dying on Rosh Hashanah seems like a Biblical punishment.

Is it the End of Days?

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was my hero when it comes to aging rebelliously.

I dressed as her for the last Halloween party I attended.   Even with my short hair and no bun, everyone knew who I was supposed to be.  Just the glasses and the robe with signature collar was enough.

RBG wasn’t the least bit self-conscious about looking like a little old lady. She didn’t bemoan her lost youth or complain about her ailments.  She didn’t get work done on her face, dye her hair pink or wear jeggings. She simply kept on fighting the good fight while surviving reoccurrences of the deadliest of cancers--over and over.  She kept on writing incisive, brilliant Supreme Court opinions with no loss of acuity throughout years of suffering from a disease that should have killed her in a year. For someone like me—with a raft of health problems, including cancer—she was a role model.

She almost never smiled.  I loved her for that.

I’m not particularly religious but Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying on Rosh Hashanah is genuinely spooky.  Jewish tradition says that those who die on Rosh Hashanah are Tzaddiks or wise people.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg certainly fits that description. 

Rosh Hashanah, for those who aren’t familiar with Judaism, commemorates the creation of the world and marks the beginning of the Days of Awe, a 10-day period of introspection and repentance that culminates in the Yom Kippur holiday, also known as the Day of Atonement.

This Rosh Hashanah passage in the Torah always gives me the chills:

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed,

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,

Who shall live and who shall die,

Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not,

Who shall perish by water and who by fire,

Who by sword and who by wild beast,

Who by famine and who by thirst,

Who by earthquake and who by plague,

Who by strangulation and who by stoning,

Who shall have rest and who shall wander,

Who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued,

Who shall be at rest and who shall be tormented,

Who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low,

Who shall become rich and who shall be impoverished.

But repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severe decree.

Never was this passage more relevant.  I hate to be apocalyptic but we’re in a Biblical year with a plague and fires and floods and hurricanes and worldwide violence and unrest. Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have died after a long, productive life but she sure checked out prematurely when it came to saving the rest of us.   Democracy may die next year without her on the Supreme Court.

 She could have spared us.  She had the opportunity to resign during Obama’s administration to be replaced by a young liberal justice before the Senate turned red.   But she was human--she couldn’t bear to give up the job she loved—and who could blame her really?  Her work defined her.  Retirement didn’t appeal.  She was a feminist and liberal and believed that the cause of women’s equality and progressive values would somehow prevail, and that was her—and our--undoing.  She thought Hillary was going to win.

She suffered from a failure of imagination and maybe a touch of hubris.  The Trump presidency was unimaginable so she—and we—failed to imagine it. Now her deathbed wish—to be replaced after the election--will only come about with a miracle.   

Repentance and prayer won’t do a damned thing to avert the severity of this decree, but righteousness from just a few Republican senators would do it.

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