> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.theredlighthouse.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Sotomayor Asked for an Answer by Monday. Bain Replied That the Supreme Court Cannot Hear This Case. - URL: https://www.theredlighthouse.org/advocate-bain-answers-sotomayor-supreme-court-jurisdiction/ - Published: 2026-09-29T13:06:17.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-30T02:15:03.000Z - Description: Justice Sotomayor asked Moshe Bain to respond by Monday. He did, and his lead argument is that the Supreme Court cannot hear a stay request over a trial court order no appeals court has reviewed. Here is what the opposition says, where it is strong, and where its neutrality claim has a seam. - Author: The Red Lighthouse - Tags: The Advocate, News Stories Three days ago we told you the answer was due Monday at 4 p.m. It came in on time. It does not say a New York judge may order a believer to lobby his own rabbis. It says the Supreme Court has no business hearing the question yet. The case is Strulovitch v. Bain, docket 26A382\. Samuel Strulovitch, an Orthodox Jew, asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor to pause a Westchester County order that bars him from taking a business dispute to a beis din, a rabbinical court, and directs him to "take all steps necessary" to have that court withdraw a censure it issued against Moshe Bain. Bain's lawyers answered on September 28\. Their lead argument is not about the First Amendment at all. It is about which court gets to speak first. Start with what changed. Since our September 27 report the docket has gained two filings and no order. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a brief supporting Strulovitch on September 25\. Bain filed his opposition on September 28\. As of the docket's current state, Justice Sotomayor has neither ruled nor referred the application to the full Court. Now the opposition on its own terms. Bain is represented by Melissa Arbus Sherry of Latham and Watkins. The brief makes four moves. First, jurisdiction. Federal law lets the Supreme Court review a state's final judgments and lets a Justice stay them under 28 U.S.C. sections 1257(a) and 2101(f). Bain says the order Strulovitch challenges is an interlocutory order from a trial court that "has yet to be tested in any appellate tribunal." Second, exhaustion. Bain says Strulovitch has not perfected his appeal or asked the Appellate Division to expedite it. Strulovitch's application tells a different story about the delay: a notice of appeal filed May 4, a stay motion fully briefed, and no ruling for months. Both sides agree on the dates. They disagree about who owns the silence. Third, neutrality. Bain says the order applies New York's ordinary arbitration law, Article 75 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules, under which a court may stop an arbitration absent a clear, explicit and unequivocal agreement to arbitrate. On that reading the order does not target a religion. It stops one man from pulling another into an arbitration he never agreed to, and the forum happens to be a beis din. If that is right, Employment Division v. Smith says a neutral, generally applicable law needs no religious exemption. Fourth, the censure. The brief treats the instruction to get the seruv withdrawn as a demand on Strulovitch's conduct, not on the beis din, and says it does not force him to say anything religious. It also argues that Strulovitch's own litigation choices undercut his claim of sincere conviction, and that Bain himself now lives under communal sanctions. Concede what deserves conceding. If the Court lacks jurisdiction, nothing else in the brief matters, and the argument is not a technicality. Review of a state trial court's interim order is rare for a reason, and federal justices do not lightly step in while a state appeal sits pending. Now press. The neutral principles approach began as a tool for church property disputes. The Becket brief argues it was never built for internal religious governance and that this order drags a civil court into a religious determination. And the neutrality claim has a seam. An order written only to stop an unwanted arbitration would not need a second clause directing a man to seek the withdrawal of a religious censure. The application's second question asks exactly that: may a civil court compel a person to petition clergy to retract a determination he personally agrees with? The opposition answers with the word conduct. A court may say no to one man's arbitration without saying a word to his rabbis. Whether this order did the second thing is the question the Justices may never reach. What to watch is narrow. Justice Sotomayor can act alone, deny the application, or refer it to the full Court. If she reaches the merits, the censure clause is the part that matters. If she does not, the Appellate Division still holds a fully briefed stay motion, and a ruling there would change what is left to decide. Christian readers should notice which door this case runs through. Whatever the Court says will govern any believer, in any tradition, who takes a quarrel to his elders and finds a civil judge waiting. We will keep watching docket 26A382 and tell you when the Court acts. If you want cases like this read closely instead of shouted about, send this to the person at your table who argues about religious liberty. ### Sources - [Supreme Court docket 26A382, Strulovitch v. Bain](https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26a382.html&ref=theredlighthouse.org) - [Application for a stay, September 17, 2026 (Supreme Court docket)](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A382/424747/20260917211145398%5F2026.09.17%20-%20REVISED%20Strulovich%20Stay%20Application%20830%20PM%20presumptive%20final.pdf?ref=theredlighthouse.org) - [Response of Moshe Bain opposing the application, September 28, 2026 (Supreme Court docket)](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A382/425855/20260928154512210%5F2026-09-28%20Bain%20Emergency%20Stay%20Opposition%5F%20SCT%20No.%2026A382.pdf?ref=theredlighthouse.org) - [Brief of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty supporting the application, September 25, 2026 (Supreme Court docket)](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A382/425725/20260925175212081%5FStrulovitch%20Amicus%20Brief%20FINAL.pdf?ref=theredlighthouse.org) - [Our September 27 report](https://www.theredlighthouse.org/advocate-strulovitch-beis-din-sotomayor-monday/)