Joe Lieberman’s Rabbi On The Senator Who Was ‘One Of Us’
When Rabbi Daniel Cohen was writing his book about courage, he couldn’t think of a better subject for a chapter than his congregant, Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
Lieberman, who died Wednesday at 82, eventually wrote the foreword for the book, What Will They Say About You When You’re Gone?
And Cohen, the spiritual leader of Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford, Connecticut, will be answering the question posed by his book’s title when he officiates the senator’s funeral.
In his eulogy, Cohen will of course highlight Lieberman’s commitment to Sabbath observance as he rose through the ranks of American power. But in an interview Wednesday, Cohen said that at the synagogue, the late senator would be remembered as a “mensch par excellence” who — in spite of his lofty position — hung around to schmooze after services.
“He was a senator, but at the same time, he sat in seats like everybody else, he enjoyed the kiddush like everybody else,” Cohen recalled, noting the senator’s fondness of cholent and whiskey. “When he walked home from shul, he got soaked on rainy days. He was one of us.”
Lieberman’s dedication to Sabbath-observant Judaism began at Agudath Sholom, where both the mikveh and beit midrash are named for family members. He was Al Gore’s vice presidential nominee in 2000 — the first Jew to be nominated for the position — and his observance briefly became campaign fodder. Lieberman continued to attend the shul on Shabbat as long as he lived in Stamford. (He moved to Riverdale following his retirement from the Senate in 2013).
Cohen did not join Agudath Sholom until 2005, after the senator’s unsuccessful run for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. (Lieberman won reelection to the Senate as an independent in 2006.) Returning to the Senate, his political influence was hardly diminished in the eyes of his congregants, Cohen said.
“People always wanted to get his ear — like, how often do you have a senator who’s like, hanging out eating cholent with you? People visiting Stamford would be like, ‘He’s davening mincha like me?’” Cohen recalled, referring to the afternoon service. “But he gave everyone the time of day. He listened well.”
Still, when he delivered sermons that might touch on political issues, Cohen remembered being nervous of how Lieberman would react. And he wondered if they might make a difference.
But the senator’s responses, Cohen said, were usually the same: “He said he liked them.”
He said he saw Lieberman as “the modern embodiment of the biblical Joseph — somebody who can really serve as a role model for the vision of being a Jew which is not isolating oneself from the world, but engaging in elevating the world.”
He thought the senator’s commitment to religious observance was the product of a series of minor decisions guided by a commitment to God: “A life is built by small decisions, not major ones,” Cohen said. “And Senator Lieberman understood that character is built over time.”
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
Louis Keene is a staff reporter at the Forward covering religion, sports and the West Coast. He can be followed on Twitter @thislouis.