Robert Bork has died and his passing just over 25 years after his losing battle for a seat on the Supreme Court is cause for reflection. To briefly review the episode Mr. Bork a judge on the prestigious D.C. Circuit Court and before that US Solicitor General and a Yale law professor for 19 years was nominated by President Reagan just a year after fellow conservative Antonin Scalia had been confirmed by the Senate 98-0.

But Bork was different. First Reagan’s earlier conservative nominees William Rehnquist and Scalia filled already-conservative slots on the Court; Bork’s ascension however to take the retiring Lewis Powell’s place would begin to tip things rightward. Yet as liberal New York Times columnist Joe Nocera wrote last year “liberals couldn’t just come out and say that. ‘If this were carried out as an internal Senate debate ’ Ann Lewis the Democratic activist would later acknowledge ‘we would have deep and thoughtful discussions about the Constitution and then we would lose.’ So instead the Democrats sought to portray Bork as ‘a right-wing loony’….”

But more: Bob Bork was formidable in scholarship intellect and persona and liberals knew it. Commentary’s John Podhoretz writes:

Perhaps the most important legal scholar of his day whose work … was both accessible and deeply considered Bork was exactly the sort of choice serious-minded people should have welcomed. His nomination did the Court credit.…

But no. Nothing like the campaign to deny Bork the Supreme Court had ever been seen before. It was a systematic campaign of personal destruction undertaken by liberal interest groups who had come to see the growing conservatism of the Reagan-era judiciary as an existential threat to them.…

On a personal level Podhoretz writes “[t]o know Bob Bork was to be astonished at the level of invective he generated. He was a shy abrupt slyly witty and intensely thoughtful man. He had no airs. You asked him a question he answered it. Even the Washington Post’s obituary acknowledges that ‘friends and enemies alike found him a man of great charm compassion and intellect with a wit so sharp a close friend once called it dangerous.’$$$Seperatequote$$$”

Back in 1987 the Post opposed his nomination but admitted that the “campaign against him did not resemble an argument so much as a lynching” based on “profoundly distorting the record and the nature of the man.” And the lead culprits in that lynching? One was the man eulogized ad nauseam upon his passing as a “lion of the Senate” Ted Kennedy. He famously took to the Senate floor less than an hour after the nomination was announced to ominously intone that “Robert Bork’sAmerica is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids ….”  As James Taranto is wont to say Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

But let the record show as well that the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who presided over this “lynching” who delayed the nomination hearings for 76 days to allow the anti-Bork media campaign to gear up was one Joseph Biden. “I congratulate all those who have chosen to engage in the debate on principle ” is how he cheerfully put it in closing debate on the nomination. And then in this year’s vice-presidential debate Biden had the breathtaking gall to say: “Just ask yourself: With Robert Bork being the chief adviser on the Court for Mr. Romney who do you think he’s likely to appoint?”

The damage from that episode has been long-lasting. As attorney Adam White noted in the October Commentary ever since that time “the ideal nominee became basically the anti-Bork one with … little or no paper trail of constitutional scholarship — and … the ability to deflect … pointed questions of constitutional theory.” In a 1995 article law professor Elena Kagan bemoaned the fact that “not since Bork … has any nominee candidly discussed or felt a need to discuss his or her views and philosophy ” a delicate way of saying these would-be preeminent jurists dissemble in front of the entire nation — just as she subsequently would do when nominated to the Court.

But even greater has been the damage to the American body politic. As Nocera writes:

The Bork fight in some ways was the beginning of the end of civil discourse in politics.… The anger between Democrats and Republicans the unwillingness to work together the profound mistrust — the line from Bork to today’s ugly politics is a straight one.… The next time a liberal asks why Republicans are so intransigent you might suggest that the answer lies in the mirror.

JUDGMENT CALL This week I came up against one of the occupational hazards of writing a weekly column like this one.  Although I try to observe the halachos of dibbur kasher in my writing (and if ever I fall short Mishpacha’s rav is there to set me straight) there’s more to writing like a Jew than just complying with those halachos. There’s also the feelings one has as he writes which come through subtly in his words.

Recently in response to Peter Salovey’s appointment as president ofYaleUniversity I wrote about the school’s unfortunate record on various issues of Jewish concern and of my hope that Dr. Salovey a descendant of Rav Chaim Volozhiner could draw upon his spiritual heritage in his new position. I tried to write factually and fairly citing his praises giving him the benefit of the doubt and using a mild tone even as I wrote of his apparent contradictions and missteps. But the one thing I didn’t do was to keep uppermost in mind as I wrote that he’s not just Yale’s president but also a fellow Yid whose distance from Torah should pain me. 

Then I received a call from Mrs. Devora Farrell whose name readers may recall from an article in Family First last year that described her life challenges and the very inspiring way in which she faces them.  Speaking with her has helped me to see Peter Salovey in a different light and more importantly to remember that this is how I need to see all Jews. I don’t know if I would have written my column all that differently but I would surely have felt differently while writing it and that matters too. Here’s a synopsis of what she said in our conversation:   

I very much appreciated your compelling article on the appointment of Dr. Peter Salovey as the 23rd president of YaleUniversity. As you noted Dr. Salovey is a not-yet-observant Jew.  However I would not necessarily categorize him as having “decided to jump headlong into the American melting pot.” Peter is my oldest brother. Our other brother Todd and I have both been fortunate enough to be inspired to learn Torah and to adopt a frum lifestyle due to the tenacity and persistence of those who committed to be mekarev us despite our strong identification with the values of the secular academic world. We are so grateful that we were not written off as unable to have our eyes opened to the beauty and veracity of Torah.

Peter has a mezuzah on the door of his office. He also leads a Pesach Seder for Yale colleagues. The Chabad rabbi associated with YaleUniversitycomes to visit Peter and to Peter’s delight provides tefillin for Peter to don along with Peter saying the accompanying tefillos.

Most meaningfully to me Peter makes every effort once a week to call into a daily family conference call (organized by our cousin “Uncle” Zundel Berman) to say Tehillim on my behalf (I have Stage IV cancer which is currently testing negative). This despite not affiliating with a community within which this practice is typical. Our father who is also not yet frum joins from his own phone on a daily basis while wearing a yarmulke joining many other members of the family to daven for my complete recovery. We all (Jews not just my family) have many reasons for desperately needing Hashem to send Mashiach.

Yes Peter is my brother. And in a different way he is your brother too. Do you remember standing with him at Har Sinai? Hashem doesn’t give up on us. It is easy enough to look at someone being promoted in the secular press as a “hero” of non-Torah life and assume he has no inner calling to aspire spiritually. Indeed he affectionately uses our term to refer to himself as “not-yet-frum.” While I as Mr. Kobre asserts also hope that Peter’s leadership will lead to a “more moral Yale ” I would like to hope that teshuvah is not beyond his reach. The more difficult task would be to feel heartbroken over the possible loss of a member of the Jewish family and to use that sadness as motivation to bring him close with love respect and patience.

 Thank you so much for your well-researched article and gently stated points.

            Devora Chiyenna bas Eliyitta (Salovey) Farrell

In addition to the other lessons in all this the fact that both the sister and brother of the president of Yale have returned to Torah highlights what an unusual time in Jewish history we are living through and what a responsibility this places upon us all.