Today is Bereshit, perfect for a weekend of baseball. Because it is the answer to an old Jewish joke. What is the first mention of baseball in the Bible? In the BIG inning. Which we will read shortly.
This is not the only Biblical connection between baseball and Judaism. “We also read in the Torah Eve stole first, Adam second; Joshua sent a blast to the wall; Rebecca went to the well with the pitcher. Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac; and Goliath was struck out by David.”
While I have known these jokes for decades, and saw them again recently from another rabbi, apparently they came originally from an old Keeping Posted magazine that we used to get as kids in religious school.
But seriously, with apologies to the Sound of Music, the beginning is a very good place to start. Why? What is so important in these first few chapters, we just read the first chapter this morning of the Book of Genesis? It is not especially good science. But that is a sermon for a different time.
I think there is a message there. Rabbi Harold Kushner who wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People wrote a book I find I need to reread every year. How Good Do We Need To Be. He argues that these opening chapters of Genesis teaches us that G-d loves us, even if we don’t listen, even if we disobey, even if we are not perfect. He argues that the purpose of Judaism, of any religion, is not to be perfect but is to be whole, and to know that we are loved by G-d and there is enough love to go around. Even if you are jealous of your siblings, you squabble with you spouse, you place unreasonable expectations on your children. And he does it with a baseball metaphor.
Life is like the baseball season, where even the best team loses at least a third of its games, and even the worst team has its days of brilliance. The goal is not to win every game but to win more than you lose, and if you do that often enough, in the end you may find you have won it all.
Kushner, How Good Do We have to Be
Works for me! When we lived in Evanston, I had a little white radio, AM/FM that looked like a baseball. My brother had the red one. I would hide under the covers, listening to WGN and the Chicago Cubs. It was on that radio that I heard about the death of Robert Kennedy and on that radio that I heard of the plane crash carrying Roberto Clemente. So, yes, I was a Cubs fan in my youth. Then we moved to Grand Rapids. My brother became a Tigers fan. I remained a Cubs fan. Danny played T-ball. My father coached. Then he had a heart attack and I became his proxy, helping the other coach. There is nothing better than sitting outside on an early, warm spring day watching kids play baseball. In this wonderful creation.
In college I became a founding editor of the Tufts Daily, the sports editor. With my precious press pass, I could attend opening day at Fenway Park, which back in the day the opening was against the Tigers, not the Yankees. A Red Sox fan was born. It is a hard life, a Jewish life to be a Cubs fan, a Tigers fan and then a Red Sox fan. My spiritual director used to say, and I checked with him this year, that G-d could never allow a Cubs-Red Sox world series because someone would have to win and then the world would have to come to an end. It would be of epic proportions, it could usher in the messianic era. And since that is not the series we have this year, maybe he is right.
Seriously, there has been much written about the Cubs and Judaism lately.
The Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer, made a stop at Wrigley this month, saying “The Cubs might be the most Jewish team in America. They’ve experienced a long period of suffering and now they’re hoping to get to the promised land.” 108 years is a long time to wander in the desert. Even longer than the Israelites. A Jerusalem Post columnist, Rabbi Stewart Weiss called the Cubs, “The Jews of the sports world. “long-suffering, mocked and maligned, preyed upon by Giants, Pirates, even birds and fish, always seeking the Promised Land of postseason play yet never quite making it there. For 2,000 years, Jews wandered the world, hoping that one day they’d reach the Promised Land, the land of Israel. And so, we finally did. For 108 years, the Cubs have wandered the baseball world, hoping that one day they’d reach the Promised Land, the World Series. And God willing, one day they will! Maybe this will be the year.”
My college thesis advisor, Sol Gittleman, who wrote, “Reynolds, Raschi and Lopat: New York’s Big Three and the Great Yankee Dynasty of 1949-1953.” He paid for his first year of college on the proceeds of betting on his first world series. He knew that “Baseball’s not just baseball. It’s integration, immigration, law, transportation, travel, Manifest Destiny, race, labor and business relations, ethnicity, technology – a whole series of topics that really represents American history.”
Now Sol has always been a Yankees fan, never a Dodgers fan. And he could talk to you about the power of rivalries. There exists a strong rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees. Some would say bitter. But when that rivalry spills over to physical violence, which it has, in Connecticut for example. That is not OK. That is NEVER OK. A better model is when Simon and the Phelans, both rabid fans for their college teams can sit calmly side by side at breakfast discussing tomorrow’s game. Because it is only a game. And you have to play the game.
It’s math too. A way to learn multiplication tables of threes.
And spirituality.
Theologians have recognized its metaphysical qualities. The Wall Street Journal said, “That slow pace requires fans to pay close attention for hours in the hopes of a transcendent moment.” Sol and I would say it teaches us about meditation, prayer, patience, grace and greatness, compassion.
Irwin Keller, in an article that a congregant sent me this week, said, “Because being a Cubs fan has something to do with faith. Not faith in a specific outcome, but faith for its own sake. Faith as practice…Whereas the theology of the Cubs fan had (and has) something to do with our embrace of the “is” rather than the “might be.” It is the belief without proof. Without promise of reward. Patience just because…If only we could live our lives this way! With such constancy. With exquisite endurance, faith that doesn’t flag, joy even in the waiting.”
There is even a book by John Sexton, Baseball as a Road to G-d.” I have added it to my goodreads reading list.
And hope—which brings us back to today’s Torah portion. Shortly we will read about mikveh mayyim, the ingathering of the waters, where we get the word mikveh from. But the work mikveh and the word tikvah, hope are related.
And ritual—think about how a baseball player comes to the plate and makes all sorts of hand motions before actually hoisting the bat to his shoulder. That’s ritual. Think about all the things you’ve heard about billy goats and lucky shirts, Chicago dogs, watching or not watching. Those are rituals too.
And about family—for many watching sports together is that “dor v’dor”, from generation to generation moment that we sing about. I know that Simon says he feels closer to his father sitting in the Michigan stadium with 100,000 other people than any other place. I know that there are many in Chicagoland who have waited for this moment their whole lives and want to share it with family, parents, children, grandchildren. L’dor v’dor!
And abut this very place. When standing at the Field of Dreams diamond in Iowa thinking about the main hope of that movie, “If you build it, they will come.” It is not unlike Herzl whose belief “If you will it, it is no dream.” So my prayer this morning, is, please G-d, no more wait until next year. If you will it, it is no dream.” Please G-d, let this be the year.”
One last joke. From Aish.com with a change of names. Manny and Maurry, both in their 90’s, had played professional baseball together and, after they retired, had remained close friends. Manny suddenly fell deathly ill. Maurry visited Manny on his deathbed. After they talked a while and it became obvious that Manny had only a few more minutes to live, Maurry said, “Listen old friend. After you die, try and get a message back to me. I want to know if there’s baseball in heaven.”
With his dying breath, Manny whispers, “If God permits, I’ll do my best to get you an answer.”
A few days after Manny died, Maurry is sleeping when he hears Manny’s voice.
Manny says, “Maurry, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, yes, there IS baseball in heaven. The bad news is, you’re scheduled to pitch the top half of tomorrow’s double-header.”
In the BIG inning. Let’s go read it. And go Cubs.