As part of their education and training to be Modern Orthodox leaders of the future, Straus Scholars are encouraged to take summer jobs, internships, and fellowships that allow them to build on their Straus Center studies. Many Scholars have spent this past summer participating in programs where they study aspects of public policy and philosophy relevant to their academic and personal interests. We continue to highlight Scholars who have taken advantage of such programming this summer, many of whom have produced novel and important research and analysis in areas of particular concern to American Jews. In this installment, we spoke to Aharon Soloveichik (YC ‘25), who spent his summer delving into constitutional studies with the Hertog Foundation. Examining the most difficult and intractable questions about law and jurisprudence, Soloveichik found that there is a distinctly human element to resolving disputes. What’s more, he gained an appreciation for a shared central element between the American and Jewish legal systems: the importance of tradition.
Tell us about the time you spent with the Hertog Foundation this summer.
As a student in the Straus program at app University, one of my goals is to analyze the great works of the Western canon from a Judaic perspective. The Constitutional Studies Program at the Hertog Foundation afforded me the terrific opportunity to be able to meticulously study some of the recent seminal decisions of constitutional law and the related briefs and jurisprudence, and to gain a better appreciation of some of the most important jurisprudential debates of our time.
Who helped you appreciate these debates -- and what kinds of topics did you cover?
Professor Adam White, who teaches at George Mason’s Scalia Law School and is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was the instructor of the program. He showed a real command of the material, and deepened my understanding of constitutional jurisprudence. He explained that while to practice law is to seek the ideal of justice, what is really being sought in any given case is “justice as applied,” so there are prudential aspects involved in every judicial decision. Furthermore, the court must rule with “principled adjudication,” so it must show that its rulings are based on a principled law. The balance between prudence and principle became evident in every case we studied. The course covered controversial topics, from affirmative action to abortion to religious liberty, with a particular focus on the question of when precedent (stare decisis) should play a decisive role in a decision. We also discussed the debate between proponents of originalism and the “living constitution.”
Hertog is known for bringing in top-notch guest lecturers and hosting fascinating Q&A sessions. Which guests stood out to you?
One of the most interesting topics we discussed - and probably the one most relevant to Jewish life in America today - was religious liberty. A couple of guests gave us great insights into how religious liberty gets litigated. As our final guest, the program welcomed Lori Windham from The Becket Fund, who had successfully argued the Fulton case before the Supreme Court. She won one of the biggest victories for religious liberty in many years, in a case most academics thought she would lose. She discussed subjects ranging from what it was like to argue a religious liberty case in front of the Supreme Court, when a case may be classified as a First Amendment issue, and what constituted “religion” in the context of the First Ammendment. That last issue came up a lot. Another guest, Judge Thomas Hardiman of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, indulged us in a really fascinating question-and-answer session. Interestingly, when I pressed him on what he would understand to be a “religion,” he replied simply that he would use his instinct, and that this was often the case in judicial interpretation. That surprised me, but it is a good reminder that law and litigation are human endeavors and we often try to squeeze perfect answers out of imperfect systems. How that line gets drawn takes intuition, and that’s just part of living in a world of tradeoffs and compromises.
What themes of the course do you think you'll carry with you in your future studies at YU?
The course was titled “The Supreme Court and Precedent,” and we spent a great deal of time on the definition of precedent and how it should be used when adjudicating. Adam White, throughout the course, emphasized the notion popularized by British statesman Edmund Burke of “an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity.” The most commonly used word in the course was “tradition.” Aspects of the conversation reminded me of a speech I read not long ago, by Justice Antonin Scalia. At a Marine Academy graduation, Justice Scalia spoke with his usual eloquence about “tradition”:
I want to speak to you this morning about tradition. The Marine Corps understands the value of that elusive, intangible quality. It is there in your motto: “Always Faithful.” Not just faithful today; not just faithful from now on; but faithful always, from 1775 to the present, and for as long as the republic will call upon you. It is there in the “Marines’ Hymn,” which recalls expeditions against enemies of the republic so long gone and so long forgotten that few Americans, alas, even know what the Halls of Montezuma were. And it is there, of course, in your battle pendants, giving witness to a long road of fidelity and honor from Tripoli to Iwo Jima to Iraq. It is a strange thing, tradition. It can be squandered, but not bought. It can be lost, but not given to someone else.
This passage further inspired me to ponder how we, as Jews, understand “mesorah.” It is a binding precedent that is not always fully definable, an “elusive, intangible quality.” I think I have a reinvigorated understanding of the power of what can be easily squandered but not easily found, and the importance of defending traditions even when they seem outdated or unpopular. I remain inspired by my studies this summer, and I am immensely grateful to the Hertog Foundation for the opportunity, and to the Straus Center for providing me with the encouragement and grounding to make the most of it.
