Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz. I don't know why. I knew him when I was a girl. Like many people around me when I was a child, he was older, much older, and for awhile, I called him Uncle. He was a good man, a decent man, an honorable man, and everyone around him revered him. They called him The Judge. There was ever only one person called that. Other judges were called "Judge," in conversation, even by any family members who practiced law; but there was ever only one man called The Judge. He was never Judge Marovitz. He was The Judge.
And he was old, he was so old, but his eyes sparkled.
You've surely heard how he came by his name so I won't toy with you on trifling things, except that to tell you that when he told that story, you could feel his love for his mother as a palpable thing that filled the room. It was never a joke for him, as whathisname Feldman on "What Do You Know" said, it was a story of poignancy and love, love of mother, and the story of a love of country and pure Jewish identity drunk in with mother's milk.
But the story that I'll share with you is that, when he became a Judge, his mother took him aside and told him he had a sacred Biblical duty to balance justice with mercy. But, his mother said, "always side with mercy, there's too much 'justice' in this world, and never enough mercy."
And that, my friends, is what makes us Democrats. If we were running prison camps in Gitmo, we wouldn't be torturing people. There's too much 'justice' in this world, and never enough mercy. Perhaps, our leaders who claim to be more Christian that we Jews can remember that. Mercy is supposed to be part and parcel of their religion.
But, as I go off to meet the good Doctor, the good Governor, our Chairman, I realize, there is only one Guv; there is only one The Doctor. And, like The Judge, he's a great man, a good man, a decent man. I hope his influence will be felt far and wide and long like the Judge's. And, like The Judge, he makes me proud to be a Democrat.