My grandfather had a handful of speeches he loved to give. He would say, referencing the Mishnah, that “the greatest crown a person can wear is a good name,” that our reputation is paramount. He would tell stories about the Great Depression, insisting that, strange as it sounded, it was his favorite period of life. No one had much, but everyone still had something to offer: a pot of soup for a neighbor, a dirty joke to lighten the mood, or a harmony sung around the piano.
And to every young person he met, he offered the same advice: “Be a lawyer.” Not necessarily to practice law, but to learn how to think; to reason carefully, to weigh competing claims, and to see more than one perspective at the same time.
The Book of Deuteronomy opens with these words: “These are the words that Moses spoke…” Moses begins his final address, recounting Israel’s journey through the wilderness. Remarkably, his first major instruction is not about ritual or sacrifice, but about justice. He reminds the people:
“Hear out your fellow Israelites, and decide justly between one person and another, whether fellow citizen or stranger. You shall not be partial in judgment; hear out low and high alike. Fear no one, for judgment belongs to God.” (Deuteronomy 1:16–17)
Before Israel can become a holy nation, it must become a lawful one.
What is a home without a strong foundation? What is a building without its structure? And what is a society without the rule of law?
But Moses immediately answers the deeper question: How should the law work? The answer is that justice must never depend on status, wealth, power, or popularity. The high and the low should stand equally before the law. Native-born and stranger alike deserve the same hearing. As the Torah repeatedly insists, “One law shall there be for you.”
Justice only works when those entrusted with dividing the cake of justice take their own slice last. Judges and citizens alike must resist the temptation to bend the law toward themselves. That requires humility, integrity, and something else my grandfather understood well: education.
Perhaps that is what he meant when he told everyone to “be a lawyer.” Not that we should all argue cases in a courtroom, but that we should become students of fairness and pursuers of justice. We should learn to think carefully and critically before we judge, to understand the principles before we form conclusions, and to hold more than one perspective in our minds at once.
A just society is not built merely by having laws. It is built by cultivating citizens capable of honoring them.