Circling the (Virtual) Courthouse: A Ritual for RBG

Join National Council of Jewish Women Chicago North Shore for a symbolic Jewish ritual to conclude the initial period of mourning the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish woman to serve on the US Supreme Court and a champion for women, children, and families.

This program will also be live-streamed on our facebook page. Click here for the program including information on #RuthsRevolution.

There is a custom in many Jewish communities that at the end of shiva — the seven-day period of initial mourning following burial — mourners take a walk around the block to symbolically mark the end of an intensely inward time and begin a return to the world.  

When someone is buried shortly before a holy day, shiva is cut short, so that the day is not observed with formal mourning. Given that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s burial is just before the beginning of Sukkot, Friday, October 2 will mark the day for this symbolic ritual shift in our mourning for the first Jewish woman to serve on the US Supreme Court.  

Justice Ginsburg’s dying wish was to keep her Supreme Court seat vacant until the inauguration of the next president. As we honor her wishes and her legacy, we mark the end of her shiva by walking back into the world–a world that demands that we fight for a fair and impartial judiciary. We walk to honor her legacy as a justice who worked tirelessly until her last days for women’s rights, for reproductive rights, for LGBTQ+ rights, for voting rights and for justice and freedom.

As such, we are inviting the Jewish community to join us in a symbolic walk on Friday, October 2, at noon local time. We hope you will join your community in circling to remind people that this work in the world matters critically. 

Justice Ginsburg had a sign in her office bearing the famous injunction in the Torah (Deuteronomy 16:20): Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, or “Justice, justice, you shall pursue.” This commandment is situated in the context of verses imploring us to create a fair and impartial judicial system; our pursuit of a non-partisan judiciary is, in its essence, the pursuit of justice, and our holding fast to this standard honors the memory of a great judge and justice.