Judaism, Pluralism, and Constitutional Glare

Abstract

This short essay is part of a symposium issue titled "People of the Book: Judaism's Influence on American Legal Scholarship." The essay is in part a bit of a spiritual memoir. More important, it tries to tie together various aspects of pluralism and existential encounter that have animated much of my scholarly work. The topics touched on include the question of religion-based exemptions in American constitutional law, the complicated relationship of natural law and positive, law, the debate on same-sex marriage, the problem I call "constitutional glare," and the jurisprudence of Jewish law.

Keywords: religion and law, legal pluralism, religious pluralism, constitutional theory, constitutional glare, religion-based exemptions, Robert Cover, Arnold Jacob Wolf, legal imagination, Jewish law, Jewish legal theory, natural law, same-sex marriage