WASHINGTON -- Jacob J. Lew is about to take a job that one senator proclaimed would make him "the second most powerful person in our whole government."

But Lew, expected to be confirmed soon as director of the Office of Management and Budget, will not spend seven days a week consumed with his job like so many senior officials in this Type-A, work-addicted town. As is his practice, he will head out of the office Friday evening while the phones are still ringing and the fax still humming, and leave work matters untouched all day Saturday.

An observant Jew who keeps the Sabbath, Lew is among a small number of high-ranking public officials who have defined strict parameters to their work life, however demanding and important their jobs may be, so they can devote themselves to religious pursuits and the obligations of their faith.

Whether Jews or Baptists, Mormons or Christian Scientists, these are people who defy the stereotypes of political Washington, where work is often considered the almighty, and where people are often uncomfortable with expressions of religious faith except as political theater.

In Cabinet-level jobs and elected office, they also defy the notion that an active political life -- often vicious, ugly and seemingly godless -- and an active spiritual life are mutually exclusive.

Dov Zakheim, deputy undersecretary of defense in the Reagan administration and an ordained rabbi, says he often detects a "terrible uneasiness" among acquaintances when they learn that someone as religious as he is also "as educated, as involved in politics and as active in the real world as they are."

And as partisan. While Zakheim writes a monthly column for Defense News that is often bitterly critical of the Clinton administration, he says he never crosses the line into personal attacks. "I'm a very partisan person," says Zakheim, whose family has produced a rabbi every generation since the 17th century. "But one can make a distinction between [attacking] people and policy."

Defined by religion

Those who inhabit worlds both pious and political say it is their religious commitment more than anything that defines them and gives them what many of their colleagues do not have: a life outside of work, and perspective.

Sen. Daniel R. Coats of Indiana, a Presbyterian and member of the Armed Services Committee, often goes to the chapel in the Capitol before an important decision, as he did before voting to authorize Desert Storm and deploy troops to the Persian Gulf in 1991. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican and Mormon, regularly kneels in prayer in a cubbyhole off his office. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, an Orthodox Jew, has a mezuza by the door to his office and a well-worn prayer book by his phone that he turns to three times a day.

"My belief in God is the beginning of a lot else that I am and have tried to do," Lieberman says.

On Capitol Hill, there are regular prayer breakfasts and Bible study groups -- some for lawmakers only, some for spouses, some for staff -- and a chaplain in both the House and Senate.

But unless they bump theologies on their way in or out of the chapel or in a Bible class, political leaders are often unaware of each other's private spiritual life.

Seated next to each other on a congressional flight to Iraq after the Persian Gulf war, Lieberman, a Democrat, and Coats, a Republican, each reached into his briefcase at the same moment and pulled out a Bible. "As if by an act of God," recalls Lieberman.

The Orthodox Jew and the Presbyterian have been close friends ever since and now serve as honorary co-chairs of the Center for the Study of Jewish and Christian Values.

It's not easy juggling an active religious life with a career in which 12- to 15-hour days are the norm and weekends are often devoted to travel and talk show appearances. When there are conflicts -- especially obvious for observant Jews who refrain from work of any sort on the Sabbath, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday -- there are often sacrifices.

Lieberman, for instance, did not go to the Democratic convention in Connecticut that nominated him for the Senate in 1988 because it was held on a Saturday. Instead, he taped his acceptance speech.

After consultation with rabbis, he decided that if there was a vote in the Senate during the Sabbath, he would cast his vote -- especially since it wouldn't require the use of anything electronic, only his voice. During the Sabbath, Lieberman either walks to his home in Georgetown or stays at a hotel on Capitol Hill to avoid driving.

"I made a judgment early on. I can't delegate my vote, and I owe it to the people of Connecticut to be here voting on the Sabbath," Lieberman said.

For Dov Zakheim, observing the Sabbath -- during which phones are off limits -- posed particular problems because his Pentagon job involved emergencies around the globe.

So he worked out an arrangement with his colleagues. "If the crisis involved a threat of loss of life -- which the Pentagon deals with a lot -- they would signal me," said Zakheim, who believes he is the highest-ranking Orthodox Jew ever in the Defense Department.

In such emergencies, colleagues would ring his phone twice, then once, then twice -- and then he would pick up. He said he only got the signal once -- during the Falklands war in 1982.

The call of television

Those who attend church on Sunday have other conflicts since, in political Washington, Sunday morning is as much devoted to punditry as to prayer. Hatch, for instance, teaches Sunday school at a Mormon congregation in Oakton, Va. But he says he hasn't taught more than four times this year because of travel or TV talk shows.

Hatch says he will not attend sports events -- even to see his beloved Utah Jazz -- on Sundays, the holy day for Mormons. But he says he decided that talk shows were appropriate, even if it meant missing church.

"I feel part of my mission here in Washington is to fulfill those responsibilities and try to get the most honest point of view across," said Hatch, a regular on Sunday morning television. "Part of my religion is public service."

Rep. J. C. Watts, an Oklahoma Republican and ordained Southern Baptist minister, avoids political or campaign events on Sundays and says his staff is instructed not to call him on Sunday unless it's an emergency.

But he, too, says he finds ways to schedule TV appearances around his church activities. One Sunday, for instance, he appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and then rushed off to the Howard University chapel to preach.

In fact, few political figures, however religious, decline the call of Sunday morning TV.

Betty Dukert, who retired this year after booking guests on "Meet the Press" for 41 years, says she can recall only a few politicians who refused to appear because of religious commitments: the late Michigan governor and presidential aspirant George W. Romney, a Mormon, whom she said was "most adamant," and former President Carter, a Baptist, who still is "very reluctant" to appear and will do so only on special occasions.

Those who are highly observant say colleagues are generally respectful of their lifestyles, even when they have to cut back on the work day.

"It turns out, one of the great things about this country is people on the whole are quite respectful of religion and are perfectly willing to make allowances in the name of sincere religious belief," said Eliot A. Cohen, a former Pentagon official during the Bush administration who is an Orthodox Jew.

Breaking away

Cohen says the greater problem is the struggle within oneself -- that is, having the self-discipline to break away from work and tell the boss "gotta go" when everyone else is still working.

But lower-level employees may not feel the same freedom to leave work early on a regular basis that those in top jobs do.

Neil N. Rochkind, a former legislative aide to Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, said the congressman was totally accepting of his religious practices.

"He didn't blink having an Orthodox Jew wearing a yarmulke in his office," said Rochkind. "Even when there were people from the Nation of Islam coming in and people who did a double-take when they saw me."

But to assuage his guilt and worries about leaving work early on Fridays to be home by sundown for the lighting of the Sabbath candles -- compounded by his commute to and from Baltimore -- Rochkind chose to go to part-time status. He reduced his hours from 40 a week to 36, taking a 10 percent pay cut and a 50 percent cut in vacation time. What's more, he used vacation days to take off on Jewish holidays.

"I felt in order to be fair to the taxpayers and constituents that I wouldn't be compensated for time I needed to take off due to religious needs," said Rochkind.

Worth the sacrifice

Those who are deeply religious say that whatever sacrifices they've made in their careers pale in comparison to the rewards from their faith.

"Shutting everything down Friday through Saturday -- not taking phone calls, not looking at e-mail -- is a tremendous blessing," said Cohen, now a military specialist at the Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies.

Indeed, Lieberman says he's able to work harder during the week knowing that he'll have a sort of "sanctuary" on the weekend. He says his feelings are best summarized by words he found from a decidedly non-Talmudic source -- a bumper sticker. It said: "Relax, the Sabbath is coming."

Pub Date: 7/24/98