In simplest terms, the Biblical institution of a Sabbath is intended as a weekly reminder of intelligent design. That is, the idea that life and the cosmos reflect a transcendent agent’s care and purpose. Jewish tradition prompts an explicit statement of this each Friday night in the Kiddush (“sanctification”) blessing over wine, beginning the day with the relevant words from Genesis.

Explaining this was part of the motivation behind the book that I had the privilege of writing with Senator Joe Lieberman, who came very close in 2000 to being elected Vice President of the United States. The Gift of Rest shares the details and reasoning behind the Sabbath, as a blessing for Jews and non-Jews alike. Very unexpectedly, my co-author, a dear and wonderful man, died this week. I wrote a remembrance at National Review:

Some qualities of a human being can only be captured by resorting to Yiddish. For Senator Joe Lieberman, who died much too young at age 82, the word is “edel.” Leo Rosten’s hilarious dictionary-like classic, The Joys of Yiddish, defines it as “gentle, sensitive, refined,” or “shy, modest, humble.” It rhymes with “cradle.” You don’t get to be a U.S. senator by being shy, but the rest all fits. The entry for the word is lacking Rosten’s usual jokes or other humorous remarks. Instead, he states simply and seriously, “‘He is edel’ is a compliment of the highest order.”

Please read the rest at, “Joe Lieberman: Edel.”