Call Joe Lieberman the unlikely evangelist.
The Independent senator from Connecticut — and the best-known Orthodox Jew in American politics — is probably more cognizant than most of his Jewish congressional colleagues about rabbinical interdictions against encouraging non-Jews to mimic Jewish ritual.
Yet here he is, writing a new book advising Christians and others not to drive to church, to welcome the Sabbath in the evening, to cut off the wired world and to, umm, enjoy your significant other.
“The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath” was released Aug. 16.
“This gift, I wanted not only to share with Jews who are not experiencing it, who haven’t accepted it, but also in some measure to appeal to Christians to come back to their observance of their Sabbath on Sundays,” he said.
In a surprisingly engaging read, Lieberman melds an unlikely array of tales ranging from 16th century Tsfat to tension-soaked Republican and Democratic back rooms. In the process, he makes the case for a structured day of rest that offers freedom within iron walls.
The book also provides a glimpse into how religion shaped this most adamant of congressional centrists, whose stubborn hewing to his beliefs brought him within shouting distance of the vice presidency before propelling him to the end of his political career. Lieberman announced in January that he will not seek re-election in 2012.
One potent example of Lieberman’s championing of freedom through restrictions is how the dictates of the holy day liberate him from his BlackBerry.
“Six days a week, I’m never without this little piece of plastic, chips and wires that miraculously connect me to the rest of the world,” he writes. “…If there were no Sabbath law to keep me from sending and receiving email all day as I normally do, do you think I would be able to resist the temptation on the Sabbath? Not a chance. Laws have this way of setting us free.”
As it turns out, this has been a book Lieberman has been considering for years. He says its seeds reach as far back as his first run for state senator in 1970, when his Sabbath observance first created logistical problems for his campaign staff.
The book is published by Simon & Schuster’s Howard imprint in conjunction with OU Press. Lieberman co-wrote it with David Klinghoffer, a conservative (and Orthodox Jewish) columnist and author.
Each chapter ends with a list of “simple beginnings” — practices that could launch a reader’s observance: “Turn off the TV, computer, cell phone or all three”; light two candles; bless your children, “placing your hands on their head or shoulders”; and “consider choosing a congregation close enough that you can walk there and home again.”
In one chapter he describes God’s “brilliance” in mandating conjugal sex during the Sabbath.
Lieberman’s growth as an observant Jew and his frustrations and triumphs as a politician weave through the book. His Sabbath observance appears to be inextricable from his public career: He withdrew from observance at Yale University, writing in the book that he continued to lay tefillin because it was a private act, but Sabbath observance seemed too public for him.
It “interrupted the weekend social flow of college life,” he writes.
The death of his beloved maternal grandmother — his “Baba” — in 1967 returned him to the Sabbath observance of his upbringing. Within three years, at age 28 and with the campaigning skills of his Yale Law buddy Bill Clinton assisting him, he won his first elected office, Connecticut state senator.
“I began to see myself in the larger context of history,” Lieberman said. “I came back step by step to observance.”
His Jewish observance inevitably seeped into his public life. He writes vividly of how it influenced his decision in 1998 to chastise Clinton from the Senate floor for his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky. He recalls discussing with his family whether to be the first major Democrat to speak out. His four children said he should; Hadassah, his wife, was torn; his mother, who adored Clinton, urged him to keep silent.
In the end, his rebuke that the president’s behavior was “immoral” and “harmful” and “too consequential for us to walk away from” made history.
This break with the Democratic consensus helped lead Al Gore to choose him as a running mate in 2000; Lieberman represented a clean break with the scandals that had dogged Clinton.
He writes of the celebratory Sabbath he shared with Al and Tipper Gore on Dec. 7, 2000, when the Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of a recount that almost certainly would have propelled Gore to the presidency and Lieberman to the vice presidency. The Liebermans rushed to the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s residence, just in time for Shabbat candle lighting, and after dinner the two couples walked the mile or so back to the Lieberman home in Georgetown.
“It was a night when we felt at the door of history and also very close to these two fine people,” he writes, and stops there. It’s as if he can’t bring himself to the denouement: The door that history opened was not to occupancy of the Naval Observatory but to a profoundly divisive U.S. Supreme Court decision overruling the Florida court that would put George W. Bush in the White House.
The decor in Lieberman’s Senate office is a testimony to the path he chose right through the center of America’s deeply partisan divide. Dominating the entry wall is an invitation to a 2006 event he once hosted marking the 1787 Connecticut Compromise that set up America’s bicameral parliament, and “compromise” defines the photos below it: one of Lieberman with George H.W. Bush, one with Bill Clinton, two each with George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Lieberman says he does not regret striking his own path down the middle.
Perhaps, but the legacy he now longs for, exemplified by this book, has supplanted the legacy that his independence cost him: first Jewish president.