If Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman becomes the nation's next vice president, he would likely be the first to hang a mezuzah by his office door as a sign of his Jewish faith.
The Connecticut Democrat also would be the first vice president to order kosher take-out or to observe Saturday as the Sabbath. As an Orthodox Jew, religious law generally forbids him from working sundown Friday until sundown Saturday.
While balancing his religion with his career might prove a challenge, Al Gore's vice presidential candidate already has a track record of doing it. Lieberman, 58, has successfully juggled his strict religion and his busy career for 11 years in the U.S. Senate and before that as the state attorney general of Connecticut and as a state senator.
"Joseph Lieberman is carrying out an ancient human religion that he believes in, that has kept humans alive for all these centuries," says Dr. Mandell Ganchrow, president of the New York-based Orthodox Union and a retired surgeon.
And as such Lieberman has had to make occasional sacrifices. He did not attend the Democratic convention in Connecticut that nominated him for the Senate in 1988 because it took place on a Saturday. Instead, he taped his acceptance speech in advance.
After consulting with rabbis, he decided that if a Senate vote fell on the Sabbath, he would participate because the Senate votes by voice, not by flicking a switch. During the Sabbath, Lieberman either walks to and from his home in Georgetown - an hour each way from Capitol Hill - or stays at a hotel to avoid driving.
"He always tries as much as possible to keep the letter or at least the spirit of the law," says Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb of the Orthodox Congregation Shomrei Emunah in northwest Baltimore. "He does go to the Senate, but he deliberately rearranges his life so that it's a minimal violation of the Sabbath."
Orthodox Judaism is one of three major branches of the Jewish religion. It tends to adhere more closely to traditional practices, such as keeping the Sabbath, and has the fewest number of followers in the United States. About 70 percent of America's 5.8 million Jews consider themselves either Reform or Conservative, while about only 580,000 define themselves as Orthodox.
While Orthodox Jews observe more rituals, Neuberger says, they all have three major things in common. First and foremost, he says, they are required to lead moral lives. Second, they are required to observe the Sabbath. That means not only attending synagogue, but not working or doing anything defined by the religion as work: driving, cooking, talking on the telephone, watching television or operating an appliance that requires electricity. Third, Orthodox Jews observe dietary laws, abstaining from pork and shellfish and eating only kosher foods or foods declared ritually fit.
None of those three things would get in the way of Lieberman's career, rabbis say, not even observing the Sabbath. Kosher food, these days, can be found anywhere, and in a pinch, Lieberman could resort to cereal, fruits and vegetables. As for taking Saturday off, religious law allows Orthodox Jews to work on the Sabbath if it could benefit human lives - which means Lieberman, if necessary, could tend to a Saturday emergency.
"He can be informed on the Sabbath of any emergency and he can react to it accordingly," Neuberger says.
Weinreb says Lieberman consults regularly with rabbis as to how flexible he can be with Jewish law while still remaining Orthodox.
"The more crucial a man's position," Weinreb says, "the more flexible he will have to be."
No matter how flexible he becomes, says Seymour Essrog, rabbi of the Conservative Adat Chaim in Reisterstown and the immediate past president of the international Rabbinical Assembly, he will still be considered Orthodox. Working an occasional Saturday won't change that, he says; identifying oneself as Orthodox goes deeper than simply obeying the rituals. It means, among other things, accepting the Old Testament as the Word of God.
During October, says Howard Friedman, president of the Baltimore Jewish Council and himself an Orthodox Jew, Lieberman will have to take eight days off to observe the Sabbath on Saturdays and several major Jewish holidays. But he says he doesn't think that will negatively impact the campaign.
Lieberman's Jewish supporters hope, if anything, his Orthodoxy will help his campaign. As an Orthodox Jew, they say, Lieberman will be attractive to social conservatives. He was one of the first Democrats to condemn President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, which they say is proof of his moral character and his willingness to state his beliefs.
Ganchrow, president of the Orthodox Union, knows first-hand what it's like to have a high-powered career and be an Orthodox Jew at the same time. He says it's not as hard as people might think.
In medical school, he had to leave anatomy class early on Fridays in winter so as not to desecrate the Sabbath. Yet, as a surgeon, he says, there were hundreds of times he worked on the Sabbath because it involved saving a human life. Jewish law, he says, commands a Jew to do anything to save another human life, even if it means working on the Sabbath.
"The Jewish law demands that our purpose in life is to live and save other lives, and a human life counts above all else," Ganchrow says."
[Orthodox Judaism] means ethics, it means morality, it means family values," says Ganchrow. "It means treating the next human being like you would treat yourself."
