Taking a Holiday from Dread in the Campaign's Last Dramatic Weeks

The final, frenetic three weeks of a seemingly endless presidential contest can remind us of how all-consuming politics can be.

These climactic days at the conclusion of a long and polarizing struggle can take over the lives, thoughts and even dreams of not only those who run for office or work directly in campaigns, but of all citizens who follow each twist and turn in public sentiment with avid interest and patriotic concern. A balanced perspective can be difficult to achieve at the furious climax of any significant partisan battle, but religious faith and practice can provide a valuable context.

I’m reminded of this balance on the eve of the joyous Jewish festival of Sukkot—known to many Christians as the Feast of Tabernacles. For eight nights and days, observant families will take all our meals in small, temporary structures, topped with wooden branches (such as palm fronds, if available) to remind us of the shelters and the “clouds of glory” that protected our distant ancestors when they first escaped slavery in the land of Egypt.

For the first two days of the festival, we follow the Biblical instructions and avoid creative work or financially beneficial labor of any kind—no reporting to the office, driving in cars, checking e-mail or the stock market, or catching up with your favorite podcasts. Instead, we concentrate on feasting and family. The final two days of the festival are similarly focused, with the last day celebrated as “Simchat Torah”, when Jewish congregations around the world rejoice at beginning a fresh year of our cyclical public readings of the Five Books of Moses. Last year on Simchat Torah in Israel, Hamas attacked without warning, murdering more than 1,200 of our brothers and sisters and taking 250 hostages, so that nightmare casts a sad shadow over the seasonal celebrations.   

For many American Jews, this year’s presidential campaign adds an extra note of anxiety and obsession to the festival designated in our liturgy as “the season of our rejoicing.” One candidate insists that if his opponent wins “we won’t have a country anymore;” meanwhile, that opponent argues that if she fails, her rival will pose an imminent “threat to democracy.”

If nothing else, the restrictions of holiday observance should help to reduce the apocalyptic sense of impending doom that seems to characterize our national dialogue. That’s the higher purpose of the weekly Sabbath and all the other holy days (“holy” meaning “set aside”) that dot the traditional calendar. The total number of occasions with restrictions on workday activities includes 13 Jewish festival days and 52 Sabbaths—though sometimes overlaps (a festival scheduled to fall on a Friday night and Saturday) can slightly reduce the total. Ironically, the biggest concentration of these religious holidays occurs in the same season (late September through October) that American tradition has established for our most important elections.

This coincidence brings to mind the unique experience of my late friend, Senator Joe Lieberman, of blessed memory. He remains the only Jewish candidate ever to earn a place on a major party’s national ticket, having served as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee to run alongside Al Gore in the historically close election of 2000.

As a supremely successful political leader, and a four-term member of the United States Senate, Joe remained a seriously observant Orthodox Jew, particularly devoted to the traditions surrounding the Sabbath and the holidays. As he explained in a moving and fondly remembered speech at Brigham Young University on October 26, 2011: “My Jewish faith is central to my life, including my career in politics. My faith has provided me with a foundation, an order, and indeed a purpose, and has so much to do with the way I navigate through each day, both personally and professionally, in ways both large and small. It also means that, like you, I observe the Sabbath, or Shabbat, as it is called in Hebrew. This means that for me and other observant Jews, from before sunset on Friday until after sunset on Saturday, I turn off my Blackberry. I do not drive or ride in a car. If there is a vote in the Senate, I will walk there from my home a few miles away.”

But how can that ancient and honorable pattern of observance survive the rigorous demands of a campaign for the Vice Presidency—especially when the final outcome of that race depended on just 537 votes in the state of Florida?

Lieberman’s nomination for VP became official on August 17, 2000. That means that between the beginning of his candidacy and election day on November 7^th, he would observe ten Sabbaths and a total of 7 more days of autumn season Jewish holidays (two days of Rosh Hashanah, one of Yom Kippur, and two more each of both Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah).

This doesn’t mean that the Senator spent all seventeen of those precious, historic occasions in some kind of hermitic isolation. He used all of them to reconnect with far-flung family and friends, and to honor the traditions of his faith. But those traditions didn’t allow for speeches at rallies, or fund-raising receptions, or media appearances.

The question that inevitably arises is what would have happened with the final election results if Joe Lieberman had used each of those consecrated opportunities to troll for votes, particularly in the decisive state of Florida with its sizable Jewish community that was especially well-disposed to Lieberman’s candidacy?

It remains a tantalizing “what if” concerning one of the closest elections in our history, but Senator Lieberman never doubted that he had done the right thing by placing religious commitment over political opportunity. At his speech to the students at BYU more than a decade after his heartbreakingly close bid for the nation’s second highest office, he called attention to a new book he had just completed (working with our mutual friend, David Klinghoffer) about Shabbat, called The Gift of Rest. “Now, I know some people may wonder why a United States Senator would write a book about a religious subject like the Sabbath,” he wrote. “The reason is simple: I love the Sabbath and believe that it is at once a commandment we must keep, but also a gift from God that ‘keeps’ and nurtures those of us who observe it.”

Those words seem especially relevant in this feverishly fierce election season, as we simultaneously approach the religiously mandated break of the Sukkot holiday and the Sabbath day that follows it immediately. This not only provides a “gift or rest” but an even more important gift of perspective—emphasizing the difference between the urgent (like the daily crisis and confrontation of the political world) and the important (like gathering for family meals, or attending synagogue services to fulfill traditions that will last well beyond November 5, no matter who prevails in this much-dreaded election).

Recognizing that distinction, and living according to its logic, should also enable a sense of well-being and gratitude that can survive either a Harris or Trump victory, regardless of the dire consequences so widely and destructively anticipated on all sides.