{Article written for the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel. Reprinted with permission}.
On the roof of the imposing Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem is a pyramid shaped architectural icon.
The pyramid, while inspired by ancient edifices in Jerusalem including Yad Avshalom (Absalom's Tomb) and Kever Zecharia (the Tomb of the prophet Zecharia), can also be understood as symbolizing the role of the Israeli legal system.
The shape of the pyramid represents the Supreme Court as the ultimate judicial authority. The roof of the United States Federal Supreme Court is similarly built, in order to express its being the supreme judicial authority in the land.
The earliest source of this perceptual image is ancient Egypt, which we left as free men. The pyramidal structure reflects social hierarchy: at its peak stands the sole supreme ruler, and below him are layers upon layers of social classes.
Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, the Natziv from Volozhin, (1817-1893) explains that in the verse in Shirat Hayam (Exodus 15:1) "I will sing to Hashem for He is most high, horse and its rider He threw into the sea," the phrase "horse and its rider" represents the Egyptian world view. He also points out that Egyptian society was made up of social strata. Each class "rode" on the class below it and was the "horse" of the class above it.
In the Egyptian class system there was no room for hopes and dreams because one could not move up in the social hierarchy. The rigidity of the Egyptian social system strangled any personal ambitions, and caused the system to stagnate, fixating thought, allowing for no dreams, no ambitions, and no hopes. Even when the Jewish people attempted to aspire to something loftier, the Egyptians reacted with their standard weapon – enslavement: "Make the workload heavier on the men, and make them do it. Let them not talk about false ideas" (Exodus 5:9). (Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth http://www.mikve.net/content.asp?pageid=456)
A pyramid is a stable structure. The first row of stones cannot possibly free itself from those above it. Egypt, in its pyramidal structure was indeed the most stable empire in the ancient world until the miracle of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.
Rabbi Avraham Itzhak Hacohen Kook zt"l stated that "the exodus from Egypt will always remain the entire world's spring time" (Meged Yerachim, Nissan). Throughout history we see significant changes and transformations which, according to Rav Kook, would not have occurred if not for the exodus from Egypt.
"For if Hashem had not taken our forefathers out of Egypt to eternal freedom, the entire world and the order of human life would have remained as it was without change, and the enslavement to Pharaoh in Egypt would have continued" (Olat Reiah, p. 268).
Jews are commanded to remember the freedom attained by the exodus from Egypt in daily prayers, in the Grace after Meals and during holidays. This commandment is intended to enable us to internalize the knowledge that one is capable of freeing oneself from any sort of enslavement, no matter how impossible this may sometimes seem.
The pyramid atop the roof of the Israeli Supreme Court may be said to represent Israeli society as a democracy pyramid, though this may not have been the architect's original intent. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak put the judiciary above the elected representatives in the Knesset and above the Cabinet, and appropriated powers which, in a democracy, are not assigned to the judiciary.
By all rules of democracy, the three branches of the government should stand side by side and balance each other, whereas Justice Barak turned Israeli democracy into a pyramidal government where the judicial branch is the supreme ruling authority and the other two branches of government are subservient to the judiciary and trampled on by the Supreme Court. Barak's successors are continuing this pattern and since then "every situation can be reevaluated" by the Supreme Court and the concept of "rule of law" has come to mean imposing the post Zionist agenda on Israeli society.
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel operates according to the ancient law of liberty since the time of the exodus from Egypt: to return the judicial system to its proper place as decided by the elected representatives of the citizens of the country. Our successes are "the spring of the entire world."