Maybe All Politicians Should Observe the Sabbath

In 1964, when Barry Goldwater was named Republican nominee for president, a Jewish wit quipped of the nominee, who was the descendent of Jews though not Jewish himself: "I always knew that the first Jew nominated for president would be an Episcopalian."

Indeed, had anyone predicted 35 years ago that in 2000 a Jew would be named to the national ticket, most people, particularly Jews, would have assumed that the candidate would be a rather assimilated Jew, the sort commonly referred to in the Jewish community as a "three-day-a-year Jew," one who shows up in synagogue only on the High Holidays and perhaps attends a Passover Seder.

Instead, a phenomenon has now occurred. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, perhaps the most religiously committed Jew ever to enter American political life, has now been named to a national ticket.

Still, people are sure to start asking: How will Lieberman's Orthodoxy affect his electability and his job performance should he become vice president or even president? It certainly is a legitimate question. If a man doesn't use electricity for a daylong period each week, from Friday night to Saturday night, and is indeed committed to doing no work on that day, is it safe to entrust such a man with national office?

In truth, Lieberman's religiosity has not hindered him yet. The Democratic convention in Connecticut that nominated him for the Senate was held on a Saturday, and he wasn't present for his own nomination. Instead, he sent the convention a video, in which he explained to the delegates that he did not work on his Sabbath (and seeking a nomination definitely qualities as work), but expressed his gratitude to the delegates for nominating him. After such a well-publicized incident, his religiosity was well known to Connecticut voters, and it didn't seem to alienate many of them.

In the Senate, his religiosity has not hurt him either. I've heard Lieberman tell the story of how a crucial Senate vote came up on a Friday night, and so he resolved to remain in the Senate while the matter was debated and voted upon. Since senators vote by pushing an electronic button, he arranged for his friend, Vice President Al Gore, to push the button at his request. Then he walked back to the room he had taken for the Sabbath (it was too far to walk to his house, and he doesn't drive on the Sabbath), trailed by a police car.

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