Is The Constitution Like The Torah?

The Constitution provides for its own amendment by a supermajority of the Legislature and States, whereas the Torah is eternal and immutable.

Many Jews in the U.S. conflate these two documents. They have developed a 'veneration' of the transcendence of the humanly conceived Constitution and concomitantly advanced the idea that the Torah is adaptable, whereas the reverse is true.  Irrespective of the debate about whether the Constitution is a 'living document' or to be understood from the perspective of 'original intent', the fact is that the Constitution is a utilitarian document which also itself legitimates change by amendment.

The Torah on the other hand was given to us by an omniscient G-d – as familiar with the future as we are of the past or present - who stipulated numerous times that the Torah is applicable for all future time.

Logic too supports this notion.

Governmental systems and structures must necessarily adapt to societal change. Values and morals however, are truths which transcend the vicissitudes of any particular age or milieu and must therefore endure.


Menachem Mendel Bluming RSK and Chabad.org

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