“I feel like I’ve come home,” announced high-profile defense lawyer Professor Alan Dershowitz to a large crowd of Yeshiva University students, alumni, and community neighbors who packed the floor of Weissberg Commons on Tuesday evening, November 20. The Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought hosted the conversation between Professor Dershowitz and Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik, Director of the Straus Center, as part of a sequence of Torah U’Madda conversations synthesizing Judaism and Western thought.
The discussion, titled “From Sodom to Nuremberg: A Conversation about Genesis, Justice, and Law,” touched on a wide gamut of topics, such as the O.J. Simpson trial, Avraham’s character in the Torah, the Casey Anthony trial, the situation in Israel, the Holocaust, and liberalism. Senior Mati Engel, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Jewish philosophy, liked the synthesis of religious and secular aspects in the dialogue. “Alan Dershowitz is a brilliant example of Torah U’madda,” Mati noted, saying she enjoyed how Dershowitz “blended his sharp background in Torah with his knowledge about law, politics, and Israel.”
Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and author of a myriad of books on law, Judaism, Israel, and America. Some notable titles include America on Trial, Rights From Wrong, The Case For Israel, The Case For Peace, The Case For Moral Clarity: Israel, Hamas and Gaza, Chutzpah, Letters to a Young Lawyer, The Genesis of Justice, and most recently, Trials of Zion. Over one hundred of his articles have graced the pages of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Jerusalem Post. At age 28, he was the youngest tenured professor of law ever in Harvard’s history.
His sentimental statement that he had “come home” perhaps referred to the fact that the highly-accomplished law professor and scholar graduated from Yeshiva University High School, an accomplishment noted proudly by Rabbi Soloveichik as he introduced the respected attorney. Dershowitz then continued his education at Brooklyn College and Yale. He was also awarded eight honorary doctors of law degrees, including one from Yeshiva University.
Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichick quickly opened the discussion by citing from a recent Wall Street Journal article Mr. Dershowitz had written on the rationale behind the controversial “not guilty” verdict to the highly publicized Casey Anthony trial. “For thousands of years, Western society has insisted that it is better for 10 guilty defendants to go free than for one innocent defendant to be wrongly convicted,” Rabbi Soloveichik quoted from the article (titled “Casey Anthony: The System Worked”). This legal tradition results out of America’s necessity to find the accused “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if it [were] ‘likely’ or ‘probable’ that she committed the murder, she must [have been] acquitted,” the article explained. Though many believed Anthony killed her daughter, a “guilty” verdict would necessitate the “beyond a reasonable doubt” clause, of which the jury was not certain.
Dershowitz’s article then pointed out that this legal standard of justice has its roots based in the Torah. In Parshat Vayera, Avraham pleads for G-d to save the sin-saturated city of Sodom from total annihilation even if there are just ten innocent tzaddikim (righteous men) existing among the wicked people. Though many sinners would “go free,” ten innocents would not be wrongly convicted. “So Avraham was really the first criminal defense attorney,” Rabbi Soloveichik summed up. “The role of a defense attorney,” replied Dershowitz, “is to keep the system just…[which is] a Jewish ethic.” Creating a distinction between a “legally proper” verdict and a “morally just” result, Dershowitz explained that “human justice, by its very nature, will always be fallible,” which is why we need established rules for how to pass judgments. Acknowledging the prevailing efficiency of the law system, Dershowitz gave his own example. “I have represented 36 people charged with homicide, and thirty of them went free.” He conceded that most of them were probably guilty, “but I have no way of knowing for sure.” The system of law is working.
So is there one Truth, with a capital T? In Dershowitz’s opinion, no. “I don’t think there is the [one] American notion of rights,” remarked Dershowtiz, “or one universally accepted truth in America. There is no singular approach.” Even Judaism, he stressed, preserves dissenting opinions, as exemplified by Hillel and Shammai. There are “divergent Jewish authorities even in the Orthodox world.” This is the reason the Torah calls for “Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof (Justice, justice shall you pursue),” Dershowitz continued, explaining, “For me, the word “truth” is not a noun. It’s a verb. We try hard for years—it’s a process—to get close to the truth.” Science and epistemology can try as hard as they want to find Truth, Dershowitz said, but “we don’t have the capacity to understand everything…A Jew has to know that there are things that he does not know.”
Dershowitz is an ardent supporter of Israel on the Democratic platform and has been called “Israel’s lead attorney in the court of public opinion.” Given the atrocities in November—an increased barrage of terrorist rockets pounding Israeli cities from Gaza – the talk soon turned to Israel. Dershowitz contrasted the humanitarian actions of the Israeli army with Hamas’s terrorist agenda, pointing out that while Israel (“at great expense to their own soldiers’ lives”) takes great pains to limit civilian casualties, Gaza does just the opposite.
Yosefa Schoor, a junior at Stern College, “knew of Professor Dershowitz, but never realized what a huge job he does to represent the Jewish community in the Democratic party.”
Current student at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Bracha Goykadosh raved about the spectacular performance Dershowitz and Soloveichik gave that night, reflecting how interesting it was to “hear a liberal perspective on Israel.”