His life bore witness to the importance of the Sabbath.
His life bore witness to the importance of the Sabbath.
New York — “The light’s gone from his eyes.” It was 2000, and Connecticut Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman was in full campaign mode as Al Gore’s vice-presidential nominee, about to debate Dick Cheney. Lieberman’s son, Matt, was concerned that his father was not sleeping, and maybe not praying, as he normally would. Lieberman’s wife, Hadassah, used the observation as a wake-up call to her husband. Matt had said, “His brain is all there, but his soul isn’t coming through.” “She repeated that to me,” says Lieberman. “It jolted me from my fatigue, and I think, reconnected me to my soul.” (He recounted this in his 2011 book, The Gift of Rest.)
Lieberman died on March 27, and I find myself thinking about him late at night on Holy Thursday in the most beautiful church here (Gothic-style, St. Vincent Ferrer, filled with Dominican friars at prayer). Rain and cold are not preventing pilgrims from stopping by to keep watch in commemoration of the night before Jesus Christ was crucified. Lieberman opened his book with a somewhat ridiculous story about shoes drenched by rain on a Friday night after a late budget-vote night at the Capitol. Capitol police had offered him a ride — which he couldn’t take because it was after sundown, and he was an Orthodox Jew. A small thing, perhaps. But the small things tend to direct the bigger things. Which is why he wrote a book about the joy of keeping the Sabbath — hoping to inspire people of any, and maybe even no, religious faith to pause on a regular basis.
We are creations of a Creator, and He doesn’t leave us to live this life alone.
Christianity has been in the news for ridiculous reasons in recent days — a controversy about the phrase “Christ is King” and a former president’s selling his own version of the Bible. Some of the beauty of Holy Week is that it helps you focus on things more important and more victorious than presidential elections. And, in the rain, I am thinking of Senator Lieberman. Holy Thursday is about the Last Supper and the Eucharist, which started out as a Passover meal. You’d be in denial, as a Christian, to not feel a closeness to elder brothers in faith.
When you’re in Israel, you get the fierce urgency to observe the Sabbath. When I was in Jerusalem last year, my hotel had families who had gathered there to ensure that they were not doing work. You see actual human interaction and rest — a break from the transactional lives we tend to live, let alone the cynical nature of our politics.
Lieberman had the challenge of living in the U.S. He even got grief from the Anti-Defamation League for being too Jewish — for talking about his faith too much. Even in recent days, a headline appeared about “Joe Lieberman’s religiously promiscuous campaign.” Bring it on. More of this, please. I didn’t share much of Lieberman’s politics, but his faith came from a place of authenticity and desire for not only rootedness but praise and service of God in the everyday.
This is a generalization, but Christians can often forget about the Sabbath. (Guilty.) And in the quiet of Holy Thursday, I was thinking of Lieberman because, his legacy of being the first Jew on a presidential ticket aside, his memory has much more to offer our daily lives — including, yes, some help for us to reconnect to our souls.
In The Gift of Rest, Lieberman goes into detail about his preparations for the weekly Sabbath. He explains, “We are preparing metaphorically and spiritually for the arrival of the most eminent guest in the world — the King of Kings.” He often references the Song of Songs: such a powerful reminder of God’s love for His people. And something that unites the Abrahamic peoples, if we let it. “On Shabbat,” he writes, “we feel as if we are receiving God into our homes with gratitude and love. The intensity of our experience is proportional to, among other things, the intensity of our preparation. We prepare ourselves inwardly not just by praying or meditating but also by doing physical things. In general, this is the Torah’s approach: the path to changing the inner you — your feelings and attitudes — is taking positive physical action.”
From Christmas to Easter, the physical nature of the story of salvation is hard to miss. It’s incarnation. God’s taking on human flesh, preaching and teaching among us, and dying for our sins. In many ways, every Sunday for Christians is another Holy Week, and yet we can take it for granted. These holiest days on the calendar can bring us back home. Lieberman emphasized the transformational nature of staying with God throughout the week — and resting with Him weekly.
“As the Sabbath ends each week, we pray for the promised redemption, knowing that our world remains broken but fixable and that we remain imperfect but perfectible. The choices are ours.”
“The Sabbath is a quiet, dark house where we suddenly notice things — trends in the world around us and ideas that pop into our heads out of nowhere and would be overlooked during the week.” That’s something of what I experienced, not for the first time, on Holy Thursday night.
I’m giving thanks to God for people who are not afraid to bear witness to their love of and need for God in public life, even when likely allies give them grief. As Christians, of course, we know that Jesus suffered more than that.
The last time I remember being in a room with Senator Lieberman, he was heralding the importance of Catholic education in saving the lives of the poorest of the poor in the unsafest parts of Washington, D.C. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said that the most powerful ecumenical work happens on the front lines of caring for one another. It takes the kind of reflection Lieberman emphasized from the best of our traditions.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.