Beliefnet’s Alana B. Elias Kornfeld conducted an interview with Rabbi Asher Lopatin about his congregant, new White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Rabbi Lopatin gained some fame when he advised Emanuel to work on the bailout on Rosh Hashana, and here discusses how Emanuel will observe the Sabbath and do his work:

In some of the most demanding positions, we’ve found that you can keep the Sabbath. And again, there might be certainly circumstances where he’s called away. I know Joseph Lieberman faced these issues when he was running for vice president. But, I think that even the chief of staff, and even the president, need to preserve their own lives, and the idea of Sabbath for Jews is that you have to preserve a little bit of control over your life, and a little bit of space that doesn’t allow the outside world to crush you.

Discussing how Emanuel will affect the larger perception of Jewish Orthodoxy, he says:

Most people, let alone most Jews, don’t think Orthodox Jews are supposed to be able to be this deep into the modern and secular world.

I think it will have a real impact. I know I have congregants that have had to go to court to win custody battles, because they’ve been accused, as Orthodox Jews, of being sort of these crazy lunatics. And I think when you do see these figures, however observant they are and however they would classify themselves, as members of an Orthodox synagogue, it’s got to have an impression on Jews everywhere. And I guess it does have to show that there’s a certain amount of normalcy to Orthodoxy. And maybe worldliness—a great deal of worldliness to Orthodoxy.

[…]

I think that in the end of the day, it is so important to be part of the world around us. Judaism and the world around us are not always in conflict—they do go together well, and they complement each other. I think that slowly the realization of that reality or appreciation of that reality will, for ultra-Orthodox Jews, make the position of trying to avoid the world around us as a religious viewpoint even more untenable.

Read the full interview here.