As many of us said goodbye (and good riddance) to 5780, participating in services via Zoom, we learned of the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Some of us said the Mourner’s Kaddish, generally reserved to commemorate loved ones no longer with us. Some of us even sat a form of Shiva—not on stools, as is the custom—but together mourning her loss and sharing stories of RBG’s life as we knew it through her contributions to the law. But I suggest that we all can serve as a sort of shomeret-a legal guardian entrusted, not of the body to protect it from thieves and rodents until it is buried, but rather with the care and custody of her legacy.

We all know the stories of how her exceptional academic record was not sufficient to protect her from the gender-based discrimination that women faced in the workplace; how she continued the fight on the bench that she began as an advocate fighting for women’s rights; how she respected Congress and other legislatures to do their part to shepherd major social change; and how committed she was to fulfilling her judicial responsibilities despite cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and mourning the loss of her beloved husband Marty. But sadly, her death has set in motion a political battle over who will be her successor. We know her death could have profound consequences for the Court and the country, but I wish that we could take the time to properly mourn this icon. Rather than doing that, we have become the scene from Zorba the Greek when, at the moment that Madame Hortense dies, the buzzards come in to steal her possessions.