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Cardin, right, confers with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. during a committee markup meeting on the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran Tuesday. Win McNamee/Getty Images hide caption

Cardin, right, confers with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. during a committee markup meeting on the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran Tuesday.

It was a fluke that turned Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland into the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez got hit with criminal charges and gave the rank up. Now, just two weeks into his new gig, Cardin has helped bridge the divide on legislation letting Congress weigh in on a nuclear deal with Iran. The bill thrust a man without flash or hubris into the spotlight.

The way his rabbi puts it, Democrat Ben Cardin isn't how you'd picture a senator.

"He is soft-spoken, unassuming, does nothing to draw attention to himself," said Mitchell Wohlberg, who's been the rabbi at Beth Tfiloh Congregation in Baltimore for 37 years.

But Wohlberg said those are the qualities that make people respect Cardin, and now the low-profile senator has landed in a position with high-profile consequences.

The rabbi told Cardin his ascension reminds him of the Biblical story of Esther.

"Where Mordecai says to Esther, 'You are the queen, and you have influence now in the upper echelons of the King's palace. Perhaps it was for this that God has put you in this place, at this time,'" Wohlberg recounted.

Probably not the first time Cardin heard his rabbi lay it on thick, but Wohlberg said the expectations on the senator have been the highest he's ever faced. Many supporters of Israel will not trust any deal with Iran.

"I don't think the senator has ever faced this kind of pressure from the Jewish community. I don't know if there's ever been an issue as sensitive as this. He has never been in that kind of public position that he's in right now since Senator Menendez had to step back," Wohlberg said.

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Helping Bridge Congress' Iran Divide, Sen. Ben Cardin Moves Into Spotlight