JULY 28 • 2022 | 11

pages that the concurrence 
devotes to analyzing the 
constitutional issues belie 
the conclusion that they are 
frivolous.”
Yet, in the face of the 
Supreme Court’s precedents 
discouraging the award of 
attorney fees to prevailing 
defendants, and in the face of 
the Sixth Circuit majority’s 
express statement that the 
lawsuit was not frivolous, on 
Jan. 25, 2022, Judge Roberts 
issued her decision, stating 
that the lawsuit was “frivolous” 
and awarding attorney fees to 
the protesters in the amount 
of $158,721.75, to be paid 
“jointly and severally” by 
myself, Miriam Brysk and 
Mr. Gerber, which means that 
the protesters are entitled to 
obtain the complete amount 
from any one of us.

MY NEW APPEAL
I have filed an appeal of this 
outrageous decision, and have 
filed my appellate brief, in 
which I state the following:
“[W]hile the principle 
that the First Amendment 
affords protection even to ‘the 
thought that we hate’ Girouard 
v. United States, 328 U.S. 61, 68 
(1946), quoting from United 
States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 
644, 655 (1929) (J. Holmes, 
dissenting), entails that we 
must tolerate hate speech, 
it does not entail that we 
must reward and champion 
hate speech by requiring 
that its purveyors’ attorney 
fees be paid by those who 
seek to limit — not entirely 
expunge, but limit — the 
contexts in which it may be 
purveyed, by requiring that 
an 87-year-old Holocaust 

survivor compensate a group 
of neo-Nazi antisemites their 
attorney fees. And given the 
centuries of antisemitism in 
which the use of such hate 
speech — speech claiming 
that ‘Jewish Power Corrupts’ 
and demanding ‘No More 
Holocaust Movies,’ because 
we have heard enough 
of Jewish whining — has 
resulted in the torture and 
murder of millions of Jews, 
to hold that Plaintiffs’ legal 
claims filed in court in an 
effort to limit the use of such 
hate speech in proximity to 
their house of worship as they 
enter their sanctuary in order 
to exercise their freedom 
of religion, were ‘frivolous’ 
is a reprehensible affront 
and defilement of the Jewish 
people …”
This is not an issue about 

which Jewish Americans 
can afford to be complacent. 
American Jews are always 
ready to stand up for the 
rights of others. It is about 
time that Jewish Americans 
start standing up for their own 
rights.
I have no regrets for 
having filed the lawsuit 
against the protesters, 
notwithstanding the 
outcome. If I had to do 
it over, I would do so. I 
continue to believe that the 
Sixth Circuit’s decision was 
erroneous, that hate speech 
expressed in proximity to 
the house of worship of any 
religion is not impregnably 
protected by the First 
Amendment. 

Marc Susselman is an attorney based 

in Canton Township.

the sky, and to look deep 
into the past, with a golden 
vessel like the altar of incense 
overlaid in gold, burning 
through time and thick with the 
fragrance of memory, hiding 
its illuminations somewhere 
beneath the smoke. And we 
come to understand what and 
where and when we are. And 
we will see the moment that 
we’ve been reading out for all of 
Jewish history: “Vayomer elohim 
yehi or, vayehi” or — God said, 
“Let there be light and there 
was light.”
We cannot — and perhaps 
will never — be able to 
see further, into those 250 
million years after the Big 
Bang but before the stars, 
when all was a dark, hot 
soup, unformed and void, 
tohu vavohu.

Like you, perhaps, like 
everyone in the world who 
has ever looked seriously into 
the thermodynamics of man, 
I don’t know what to make of 
all this. I don’t know what to 
do with the knowledge that I 
was forged in starlight or that 
the space between my atoms 
is empty, a vacuum, like the 
void into which, according to 
the Kabbalists, the Unending 
poured first light. I don’t 
know what to make of the 
fact that every piece of me has 
existed and will exist for all 
time.
And yet, it seems as though 
the fires of my imagination 
are endless, that my capacities 
of love and hate, laughter and 
tears, are endless and abiding 
and real. And I believe that 
I am indeed looking out on 

the world through the eyes 
of God and, as the great 
Christian mystic Meister 
Eckart famously said, that “the 
eye with which I see God is 
the same eye with which God 
sees me.” 
I don’t know what to do 
with the knowledge that all 
the electrons in my body 
hum and create this divine 
illusion of being which is the 
same as the divine majesty of 
nonbeing. 
But when I imagine 
myself one day returning 
to the stars — and when I 
looked at the new images 
of the universe released 
this week by NASA — I am 
indeed filled with a sense 
of wonder and humility 
and comfort and gratitude. 
Maybe someday we will 

build a telescope even more 
mighty. Maybe we’ll go 
back farther and marvel at 
the dark work of creation, 
the world before the letter 
“bet” in bereshit, the blank 
whiteness concealing and 
revealing all mysteries. 
Until then, each year, 
we’ll roll back the scrolls, 
we’ll read the story again 
and, with our clumsy and 
marvelous fingers, we’ll try 
to touch creation. 

Benjamin Resnick is rabbi of the 

Pelham Jewish Center in Pelham, N.Y. 

CORRECTION
In the “Best Class Ever,” (July 
14, page 10) Doug Ross’ 
daughter Julie’s name was 
inadvertently left out. We 
apologize for the omission.

THE JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE continued from page 4

