Interview with Senator Joe Lieberman

today we have the wonderful opportunity to interview senator joseph Lieberman about his book with liberty and justice which was published by oh you press in conjunction with Cohen and the theme of the book is about the forty about the forty nine days of the owned with accounting and the theme of limb of linking the theme of freedom and redemption and redemption from Egypt Liberty with ultimately with Martin toe with the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai on shores and therefore the link from liberty and justice so senator let me begin by asking you what motivated you to write this book thanks Robin great to be with you or be I mean one answer is that you motivated it's a longer story than that I mean I guess it was back in my my Jewish upbringing my Jewish education so but the truth is that you did play a pivotal role after you motivated me to do my book on Shabbat which Lilia Chris and salmon and choose to publish called the gift of rest you had been talking to me about doing a book on essa and I resisted because I thought there were so many books about Mossad about the Haggadah about the seder etc so I always had been drawn to shovel load and and and been educated by my rabbis who were obviously influenced by your salvation to see and others earlier to see shovel wrote as the completion or extension of pissah connected by the counting in the Omer but really connected philosophically in a more direct sense that the message there is about Museum and science about the liberation exodus from Egypt from slavery and of course for us it is the ultimate proof that that God has Shem kept the Brit the Covenant made with aa family no we entered history heard the cries of the Jewish people in a Israel in Egypt and liberated through Moses the Jewish people but it would always struck me in what I was taught and I think it's so important about to the Jewish narrative of history and Jewish destiny and purpose but also as it turns out more broadly to to civilization was the role that law played in other words that throughout the Hamas and the description of the discussion the negotiation between Moses and Pharaoh and the broader sense from God and Pharaoh it's clear that what Moses is asking he is not just for freedom on behalf of God but to be able to leave Egypt and slavery and to serve God and and how does one in other words as I say in this book not not not to be liberated from slavery and stay in Egypt and live sort of aquaria assimilating into Egyptian society free but not Jewish not to be liberated to wander in the in the desert but to go to Mount Sinai and to receive the Ten Commandments and the war and then to complete over a number of years the journey to the promised land in other words Israel was given its values was liberated to serve God by accepting the law and the values of the Ten Commandments Mount Sinai and then on to Israel to try to build a society that was based on that law so it's a it's a very powerful idea which infected me I think in my career choice and the lawyer your lawmaker law enforcer and of course it's had because the the this story of Passover and the receiving of the law on Mount Sinai de revelation as some redemption to Revelation was so broadly accepted by Christianity into a certain step by Islam also but it's specifically regarding Western civilization the Christians carried this on water to America became part of our system of laws so I mean I as you can see from my answer to your first question I keep going quite a bit on this theme but so I you and I talked and I said I'd like to try to do something about the role of law and justice liberty with justice which is the Jewish destiny and that has become in some ways the purpose of the United States and I mean you psych in the book of course emotions when motion event gets his initial mission from God in Egypt he says what's the clue as Moses and God says when I'll take you out of Egypt I'm gonna soak imahara's there at Moshe at the burning bush that this you'll come and you'll you'll come back to this mountain in other words yes is the ultimate mission yeah and there's the link between the two so it who is the audience that you're looking for in this book how broad is that audience paying customer I understand that book is organized according to the days of the county in the omer from ii i depressor to shovel so I have divided the book into 49 50 sections and I'm now looking at the book as section one is seated okay there you go which everything justice the fifty day journey from Egypt to Sinai incidentally I was very happy to have a collaborator in the book re Kaun who lives in Israel has a Knesset there also is on the faculty of Bar Ilan and as a published author himself and there to you were you are not only my news but in broad sense were my chef and and because they're introduced me to re Connie don't be very much so I mean that I divide that book into these people chapters and basically describing what I've just described because the purpose of the book cooking about the role of the wall before marsinah including that wonderful exchange is you referred to the burning bush to return here then to the ten commandments because in many ways that's the centerpiece of this system of law and then there is commentaries on the law after Sinai and saw about shovel or so are the most direct sense able that Jews who observed Passover and shovel and count the armor may use this as a companion because there is a separate reading for every one of the forty nine days into the fifty it can also be use of course and since we're recording is now during the own work just a couple of weeks from from several Lord and also he is such as it is this year in the midst of the pandemic I think is a hopefully a thought-provoking tanks which is broadly accessible by people regardless of their level of background learning for a t-bone they also study overnight if they're going to event soon this year but of course I hope that this will be read by others who are not either non observant Jews or not Jews who who really hold the Ten Commandments and the revelation at Mount Sinai as central to their own faith or their own living experience one of the things I talk about is the disproportionate number of Jewish people who are lawyers and there are large societal reasons for that but I do think that one of the reasons for that including my other decision to become a lawyer is because of the centerpiece of the law in in Jewish religion in history and one of the things that always strikes me is that obviously there are religions that have statues that are prayed to and sometimes statues at festivals amazed and see in New Haven the italian-american festivals equally sections of seats would be marched around in a religious setting but what do we choose march around in in our synagogues it's the towards the Colossians the five books of Moses it's the law I mean there is a reason that we are called the people of the book and the book is the and the five books of Moses and crystallized by the ten commandments which was received by Moses on behalf of the Jewish people and the people of the world on Mount Sinai celebrated on chaleur so that's why I always they say at the beginning what I believe that m-pesa is clearly the observe any Jewish holiday I would guess that shovel walk maybe the least observed and but it's for various reasons but its purpose is what we celebrate will we commemorate when we commit ourselves to on shovel load is at the very heart of what it means to be Jewish and more generally what it means to be religious well this the from case F to show us from Liberty to law the the foamer begins with the offering of the carbon Homer which was barley and barley which generally was part of animals not humans in all the the only carbon that's made of barley is the carbonate oh man and one other this carbon of a SOTA a woman who was accused of adultery because she acted in an animalistic way so the Liberty by itself not redeemed by law is incomplete and ultimately unconscious we offer the stellarcom the two loaves of bread in the basis of English and they're made from wheat and their bread not just not just grain because that represents human intervention human contrivance technology and it represents the ultimate no law represents the of course it's god-given orbiters as understood by man and developed by man represents the ultimate redemption so Liberty by itself is insufficient and I think that's one of the themes that you have in your in your book it is connecting you with the Omer which I appreciate wrong way but that's where the point I'm trying to make we celebrate freedom I mean in a in a very real way part of what pissah is so widely observed particularly about Jews but also by najin's is because of the appeal of the idea of freedom that by the intervention of God children of Israel were liberated from slavery in Egypt we know of course in our own the history of America how important that narrative from the tour about the achievement triumph was to the American Civil Rights Code so so so that's compelling but the message of the Torah is very important on train and making this book and of course you're more than familiar with just what you say that freedom is not enough and freedom is our birthright but freedom without law will lead to trouble will lead to chaos probably probably immoral behavior violence and perhaps even the self-destruction of society that who had this message that person was giving us in the Torah by going from Egypt to Sinai to get for our Ten Commandments I think is that only if you have law with liberty is there a possibility of having justice and in fact if you have Liberty but no law you will you know you will end up it away well you'll end up where the were the children of Israel were in the time of Noah preached I'm I'm with really a disaster suddenly you've served as an important model not only for the Jewish people the United States but generally so well respected intelligent you spoke about licentiousness in television and and so on and in your book you mentioned some of them these encounters I remember you have in the book you have a discussion once senator biblical senator from Connecticut who you didn't know well and worked for he asked you to speak I think the the one of the deans of the Senate then maybe no senator Russell had asked them to speak about whether with the god of the Old Testament was a God of vengeance so huge sort of account that yeah that's a notable memory that they have so during college you know I began to throw a lot of reasons my own upbringing in Torah Judaism the whole notion of you know kiddush Hashem keeping all of them my own reading of history American and world history and then they've been coming to office of President Kennedy which had a big effect on people of my generation voting in creating us into public service ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country the themes in the Kennedy and our law are very Jewish it might have been in he closes and I'm wondering a bit but I'll come back he closes with this magnificent a sentence with Jim paraphrase and of course in all that we do we will ask God's blessings but we know that here on earth there must truly be our own desires and it's a real it's very similar to my religious upbringing but also I began to think about going into public service and politics and to mutual friend I was able to receiver that as a woman I knew as a mother a classmate of - neighbor high school news senator of the pub when I was able to be an intern summer intern in his office in 1963 he had just have been governor of Connecticut first Jewish governor 1954 pretty hero to me really he was an early supporter of Senator Kennedy and candied amber Burton cabinet member yes and then he Kennedy has to be the secretary what was in CO Health Education and Welfare sample health and Human Services but and he didn't like that role and he didn't enjoy that and I'm wondering a little bit of lesson years later I had lunch with Senator look over that and he said those two years in the candidate cabinet with our worst of my public service so I said what Lysander what he was in the Senate then why senator what happened and said well you know I've been in governor and when you're governor really you determine what happens he said as a member of the cabinet of President Kennedy with whom I had good relations he said I kept receiving these calls from these 25 or 30 year old kids from Harvard telling me what to do and so anyway came back around for the Senate anything from yam not even you know this is the hood where they had you know I kicked John Kennedy when he got a yield honorary degree he said now I have the best of two worlds Harvard education and the Yale degree that's right I was actually there was a I was an undergraduate then so I worked in office that summer and it was fascinating because it was very small it was it's so tiny compared to the central office when I got there he had a chief of staff or legislative director a public relations person and like maybe four or five of caseworkers maybe a couple of secretaries but anyway so I was doing odds and ends really one day they normally the senator wanted to see me in his office wow this big so I went in and he said the joke I'm not mistaken you're religious I said I am so he said well I just had a wonderful invitation from and I think it was Senator Russell they had a weekly prayer breakfast of 15 or 20 of the Senators at that time Jewish people didn't cause all Christian and they had asked him to come and speak on the topic is the god of the Old Testament a vengeful God Wow and he said I've been thinking about it but I think perhaps you have some ideas about that and I know you work on your give me hillbilly newspaper so why don't you do a draft for me so I did some work I think I spoke to my rabbi I quote there was a professor of Old Testament of biblical studies at Yale prominent person in Judah golden now go on many years so I called him and we talked about and then I wrote a it wasn't really a speech it was like I didn't more thorough before senator River co2 given that breakfast and I basically took was no together the Old Testament was not a got a vengeance that was the god of the law of values and a loving father really to the people which is why they were chastise and always really merciful always approach to people even those who been wrong mercifully so River took it and came back from the breakfast that day and they hoping in the office again big deal really and he said that was the speech was such a success and I believe that this will have a measurable effect on my ability to be an effective senator because suddenly I've broken into this group of powerful centers mostly Southern Democrats then were all the committee chairmen you know they'd been there forever and so it was pointing buddy my my my background enabled me to play that role and it was probably during that summer that I began to form these dreams that of course I never would have revealed to anybody wouldn't it be wonderful to be a senator in fact when I left law school if you'd ask what my dream was I said well what do I want to do it was well I'm very lucky I have this position at a wonderful law firm in New Haven maybe I'll go into public service that was what I would say but really I had a goal which was to be a dream to be a u.s. senator and you know berroco semi lived the dream you know you in the book you mentioned that after you appointed by or the word leaked out that alcoholism was gonna point it to be his running mate you got a call from Jesse Jackson how did that go well I was really something because you know I'd known jesse jagz and some of course I've been in the civil rights movement during my time in college earlier Good Morning America and civil rights but I wasn't quite ideologically would Jesse wanted me to be and I was very active in a googol called the Democratic Leadership Council which President Clinton came out of it was a new democratic group they're way more centrist Democratic Party Jesse Jackson used to refer to the Democratic Leadership Council as DLC standing for democratic leisure class so you can see the anyway he called me I got a call from and that Monday morning Hamptons story had been let out by the gore campaign that I was gonna be his selection for running May there was a wonderful conversation where the city was very excited and he thought I would be a wonderful vice president and a great candidate and he said but I'm really also reacting as an African American because I believe that in America when a barrier is broken from one group the doors of opportunity open wider for every American so obviously the fact that you're the first Jewish American on a national ticket means to me Jesse Jackson that we African Americans have more forward to that we did before frankly I had something of the same feeling in 1961 but Janet Kennedy is a Roman Catholic first name ever that elected president I wasn't really thinking waiting I wasn't yet formulating a political idea but I had an idea in some general sense that Kennedy's election was gonna open doors for me okay a beautiful story and it's even more beautiful in tribute to Barack Obama because in 2008 a beaut because I was putting my friend John McCain that year against him I sawed Barack Obama after he clinched the Democratic nomination for president who was came back to the Senate to vote and I went over to him I think it tells the story from this book I went over to him on the floor and I congratulated him and said it was really a great accomplishment he thanked me and then he said you know one of the reasons I was able to do this is because of the way you ran for Vice President was the first Jewish candidate for national office and what could I say but thank you very gracious well the other important civil rights leader that you met and you speak when the book the most important civil was was dr. King yeah well even I can't say it was very like a close friend of dr. King's but I did have some meeting so so I I was that summer I was in Washington 1963 working from Senator robach in August was the march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom led by dr. Martin Luther King and there were over 200,000 people there it was a significant moment in the American civil rights movement and in some sense led to the adoption of the civil rights act or at least created momentum for it so I was there in Washington I asked my boss and rural caucus can I go to the March and I did two things about that one is who do I run into it the March with my rabbi from Stamford Connecticut Robert joy Erin Quinn's a graduate of weiu student erupts all ages really a classic engaged Modern Orthodox really and there he is where they were a bi-racial interracial interfaith delegation from Stanford Connecticut marching for Jobs and Freedom there and back there he came but I was there at the Lincoln Memorial when Martin Luther King gave the I have a dream speech really one of the great speeches in American history I was very moving at the time I don't know that I could have said it was whether great wouldn't be one of the great speeches anyway I came back to college I wrote about it and and long story short with the chaplain at Yale who was a tunneler himself William Sloane coffin and I won't mind said there was a movement to sense lives from the north of Mississippi and to work in a mock election to prove that African Americans really wanted to vote there about weren't weren't being allowed by the authorities no I'm done for about a week or ten days with a poll about a thirty or thirty-five students from Yale and then came back and it was quite an experience that's a story for another book and then I found out about two or three weeks there maybe a week or two later that dr. King was coming to speak in Bridgeport Connecticut and so I went down to Bridgeport from New Haven to hear him he was late and somebody told them people running it that I just come back from Mississippi they asked me if I'd welcome talk about what I saw and while I was on speaking dr. King arrived and as I left the stage he came on and shake my hand and said that magnificent voice very good young man other four words I took was a very good young man I saw him a few times after that very different City happen my real hero of my youth not any politician Jackie Robinson moved to Stamford Connecticut that his kid in a summer camp that I was a counselor at and he invited me in his wife to these benefit concerts he did Perceval right it was a national association the Advancement of Colored People was a magnificent house long picked on be hundred and twice dr. King was there so I got to talk to him briefly and a very relaxed and different seventh anyway but he was I think that part of the reason why he was so successful in America and advanced in the civil rights movement was a person's courage but and his eloquence but his eloquence was used to speak from a Hebrew Bible context also the movie a testament but he made it something that it was confrontational he needed to confront the status quo of racism and segregation or it wouldn't change but he spoke in terms of the judeo-christian tradition which was really absorbed by probably more by at that time by Christians and Jews and I think it was part of what helped to wake people up this is wrong segregation and that made him so successful to the point where President Kennedy began to act what really President Johnson was the one southern Democrat southwestern at Macbeth who made it happen we're speaking now of course in the mix of an enormous crisis the corona pandemic we haven't seen anything like this in a century so none of us remember and of course but your family history was profoundly affected by the Spanish flu in 1918 1919 my father's mother Rifkin's siga leverage was an immigrant to the United States I don't know exactly what you should I'm guessing we guess it was around 2010 I'm sorry 1910 1912 interestingly she came alone she was one of about eight or nine brothers and sisters from Poland and that she white as she said but within it was then but Belarus was part of Russia she was an activist in a niche social socialist party called the boom-boom Tata famous yeah anti Zionist in some ways unbelievable and her family believed that she was about to get arrested by the Tsar my bazaars horses that came to America anyway my grandfather came also from Poland a different party else and went to Canada then came from Toronto then here they met in New York and got married my father and I both blessed memory were their children but before my father reached the age of 3 and 1918 in the Spanish blue and then I his mother died from the flu and it had a tremendous effect on his life he was remarkably strong I think in some way he was born with it or he reacted to it but his father actually put him into an orphanage in Gawker's New York and as you probably know and I didn't before this there was a network of Jewish orphanages built by the preceding generations and Jewish immigrants from Germany Holland etc who had achieved some wealth and it was to take care of the children of dislocated immigrant families but here was now because of the flu my father I was put into the Oakland she was actually there for seven years until his father remarried moved in a Haven Connecticut and then took them out and they miss prentace Houston on in believing that out of high school and worked his way to Stanford but a tremendous loss I used to my father had no memories of his mother I once met a cousin who lived in the Bronx who knew her because she had originally come to stay with his mother in the Bronx it was also cousin and I said what do you remember of her and he said not much except she was high-spirited and so I took those words I sent she having a quite a personality maybe she was opinionated after us as a member of the bun and it was a great loss for my father and of course I never knew her so today was for me as well needless to say during this pandemic I've been thinking about that her a lot and of course the pandemic of 1918 was awful I mean the estimated monthly statistics were not as well kept then as now but they estimate that at least 50 million people were killed worldwide in about a year some people say it was a hundred million but of course every one of those is a story and that's the story of the city over incidentally every one of her siblings may dahlia beginning about nineteen ten twelve fourteen and one of her brothers Moshe Segel of which my father's uncle was early and and fought with truffled or to depend the first Jewish settlements of that period and was killed and I'll tell you one time I went to Israel the first times ladies just killed the same time his triple dog was killed oh no but he was with crumbled war in his forces and wasn't I don't think it was the same time that he's go but if you know there's a military cemetery up north but outside it Israel and now run row Moshe Segel leverage I was so proud I had a cousin there who took me to see it because it's a surprise obviously everyone is back just to be back to the book of course the period the OMA is a time of mourning of availeth we don't take care cuts you know Lancome is a day of celebration within this morning and that's that commemorates an ancient plague in which the students of EB Akiva 24 thousands of them all died either was a Salvation thought what the more speaks about a plague it was maybe was a metaphor that they died against in the battle with Rome but you know now's the time that people were all sort of ensconced in our houses we can't go out or very limited now's the time to be inspired by your book and they can pick it up and read it and the juxtaposition of justice and liberty understanding how you can't have one without the other now is the time to focus when we have the time of meditation what do you think just in concluding remarks about you know in this time of this pandemic of the colonial crisis yeah what's a real test of all of us listen you have to be smart going from our own al-assad the centrality of the quark membership protecting our health translate that blood it really has to be foremost and it requires us to listen to the experts and to do what's not natural in the modern world but and to stay alive so we're in our houses but the but it is fascinating how many of the trio of including particular they don't have references the plagues because they were part of life but going back of course to on the tram but but but in years after that as well and I must say on this were recording this a couple of days after Loeb almost thinking I was hoping that as we believe that the leading among well bye Cuba students ended on leg Loma that hopefully near the end on the trade were not right now but soon of this of this plague in it and that you know reminds us that value what is most important that was not quality other day it was some people with the specialness and somebody said you know thinking about my grandmother that in some ways we're not much more advanced than they were in nineteen eighteen all they could do was stay inside they had no medicine they in some ways they didn't know enough to stay and say that's what we tell me about my grandmother she was out help she's a very strong apparently and healthy so she was out helping people who were sick on the Lower East Side of New York and she obviously got her soap and died so but we have this remarkable ability to this is what Bank the Kennedy here on earth God's work is truly our own and so requires wise and strong leadership and it requires the extraordinary innovation and entrepreneurship of people in the public and private and science medicine technology and I'm an optimist I think we're going to have a what they call a therapeutic Pachulia treatment drug before too long but then the key is they have a vaccine and they're working very hard a lot of money pouring in from private and public sectors and hopefully by the end of the year we'll have a vaccine this night's not gonna be able to be distributed to everybody overnight but it's been quite a test and it brings us back to fundamentals you know what's most important it nice to make a good living etc etc but the most important thing is to be alive and that until hope and pray that our families are well and so for autism that is the report I give you on my family and I know it's two of years as well so senator thank you very much for spending this time with us everybody to really date especially now that they have that's for sure they have time to meet and if you reach out to the O you press we were able to get the book to you with liberty and justice and the Senate the lead we were telling could be with me with liberty and justice for all he hopes everybody buys the book right as what's for all and everybody please stay safe and well and we have to thank Senator Liebman not only for this book but for being the inspiring leader that has been throughout his career it was really been a model for our community and well beyond Thank You senator thanks thank you very much