With the approaching high holidays and Rosh Hashana, I took the time this week to watch the Israeli supreme court hearing on the appeals against the amendment to the basic law: the judiciary. An unusual occasion, all 15 justices presiding.
I watched their faces, one by one, men, women, elderly, serious, respectable. I tried to read their thoughts, to understand which one of them forgot who is their boss... and I'm referring, of course, to Mrs. Cohen of Hadera.
It's sometimes too easy to forget Mrs. Cohen. She's a simple woman, has no education, no sophistication. She isn't wealthy, has no troops, no policemen, no attorneys. She controls no trade union, with the power to shut down the economy. She has no PR teams or copyrighters. She doesn't write as beautifully as Aharon Barak, and isn't eloquent as Lapid or Netanyahu. Many distrust her, some loath her, others afraid of her. She is probably not even watching this hearing, where my long-ago-military-service-colleague, the brilliant government attorney Helman is making his case in front of my long-ago professor of administrative law, justice Dafna Barak Erez, and her colleagues to the bench.
However, it seems that both Helman and Barak Erez, as well as many others, have forgotten that they serve Mrs. Cohen. She is the sovereign in our democracy. Not the professors, not the generals, not the pilots, not the attorney generals, not the justices. All of them are there to serve her. If she makes the wrong choices - only she will amend them in the next elections. If she fails to properly balance conflicting values - she will fix it and no one else. And so she will live on, and continue to exist, and maintain the autonomy to rule her own fate, and there isn't, and never will be any other goal to all the constitutional and administrative judges but to make sure, that little Mrs. Cohen will continue to have control over her fate, for better or worse.
For simple as she may be, Mrs. Cohen has principles. They may differ from yours and mine. She has traditions, she has a historic consciousness, and also a vision for the future. She may be religious, but she is also liberal, and conservative, she believes in human rights, and also in civic duties. She believes in economic development, but also in equality. Sometimes she holds grudges, but usually she is charitable and benevolent. Sometimes she appoints talented representatives to carry her missions, sometimes less so. Sometimes she tires, and asks to be excused from her duties. decisions are a heavy burden. But then everybody's role is to remind her that nobody can do her job for her, and she has but one duty - to continue reigning.
We are on the verge of a new year. At the beginning of this new year coming, may we all have a year of peace, and quiet, and togetherness, may we put behind the crises that flooded us last year, and put the strife behind, come out more resilient and move forward strengthened.
[originally posted on 15.9.2023]
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