Mark McGwire and the Jews

Mark McGwire and the Jews

Rabbi Michael Feshbach

Temple Beth Am Williamsville, New York

So Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris' record.  Couldn’t he have waited? I would much rather has had some suspense leading up to the High Holy Days. The question in my mind of late has been which would come first the breaking of the record or my Erev Rosh Hashanah sermon about baseball? Oh, well you can't time everything perfectly.  Which, in fact, is the point I want to make anyway.

Mark McGwire broke the record. There is, of course, an inevitable additional question this unfolding story, this chase and race, this pursuit of the highest number of home runs in a single season- is it good for the Jews?

Now, I live in Buffalo.  For most of us here, we have had to follow the Home Run chase through the daily paper. Neither Sosa nor McGwire have been to our city for we are, in this sport, a minor league town. And minor league ball poses some challenges all its own. I am looking forward to finally getting to my first Buffalo Bison’s game, for I hear that the stadium is terrific, the team is good, the game is fun.   But I still remember the first minor league baseball game I ever attended I was happily watching the crowds and enjoying the sun and looking for hot dogs without pork, when I noticed the first dropped ball Then there was a second. And a third. And so on.

I left after five innings that summer day. Between the two teams, there had already been nine errors.

Now, I prefer football to baseball. I find baseball slow and I was, as a youngster, traumatized when the Washington Senators just picked up and left town

And yet, there is something profound about baseball that is not true of football, nor of any other sport that I can think of One of the former commissioners of baseball, Frances Vincent Jr, best expressed the lesson to be learned from this sport when he said

"Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure. We learn at a very young age that failure is the norn1 in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often -- those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players     I also find it fascinating that baseball alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth."

Errors are part of the game.  Failure is common to us all.  And one in three is greatness.  This is profound truth indeed.  This is great Torah!

The baseball season is winding down the football season is just getting under way. But we have a season all our own. we Jews In between the diamond and the gridiron, in between the fire and the ice, comes the highest stake game of all The season of the soul The game of our lives And in this game, there are both the errors of one sport, and the penalties of the other.

So much of the liturgy of this Jewish season, these Days of Awe, is a litany of faults, a recollection of failure. It sometimes seems in the way we berate ourselves for our errors   that we are expected to be saints, that we are expected to strive for perfection and, always, come up short.

No wonder we Jews are so ridden with guilt, so filled with anxiety our expectations arc impossible l At times this season seems to merely mock our overblown sense of ourselves, to list our faults, and laugh

But we can look at this time in another way as well It is a challenge, yes, it prods us to do better But it is a time of acceptance, as well The World Series and Super Bowl and Marathon race of the High Holy Day season, Yom Kippur, is called the Day of Atonement, a day, in another way of looking at the word, of atonement A time that offers us a chance to be at peace with ourselves at last.

Our actions are judged   That is part of what this season is about But it is not just that  Our actions are judged but we are accepted  We are not expected to be who we are not. and Who we cannot ever be. Why were you not Zusya?" It is only in facing ourselves as we truly are, in looking at ourselves in the mirror, in painting an honest picture -­

Cromwellian warts and all in telling the truth about ourselves that we can step towards the other side of this season -- the side of embrace, of wholeness, of healing. One small step for each of us, is one giant leap towards   the spirituality of imperfection (The phrase, and some of these thoughts, come from a terrific book of the same title, by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham The book is basically about Alcoholics Anonymous. It is very powerful.)

Rabbi Simcha Bunem of Pshishke told his disciples. Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need  When feeling high and mighty, important and proud, one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: ani eifer v'afar; I am but dust and ashes.

What was in the other pocket?  We will discuss the other pocket. in my next column.