Choices and Chances

Rabbi Michael L. Feshbach

Temple Beth Am

Williamsville, New York

If God is everywhere then, in theory, we can draw lessons about God from every area of life. But doing theology through football has been a bit of a dubious proposition ever since Mark Bravaro of the New York Giants knelt and crossed himself in the end zone after catching a touch down pass in the Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos. What was he saying: that God made that poor Bronco defensive end fall flat on his face in front of millions of fans?

There are those who study every gyration and gesture of their home teams with an intensity once reserved for holy texts. And why not? It's generally harmless, it teaches some sort of cohesion and devotion, it only interferes with the rest of the life a few months out of the year. And football games take place on Sunday afternoon, so they can't possibly interfere with the religious life of ordinary Americans, right?

Um, well. For folks in my neck of the woods, have you had a look at the Buffalo Bills' schedule this year? Is that -- could it be? -- a Bills-Jets game... on Kol Nidrei night?  Now, for some time I have stated saying that if the Washington Redskins played the Buffalo Bills on Yom Kippur, we'd have to tape it.

Services, that is.

But I think there is something I should clarify at this point. When I have said this -- I was kidding! But living in Buffalo I now know that to some people, this sport is no joking matter.

So, seriously -- and I mean that -- perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the head-on conflict, the direct collision between a Bills-Jets game, and the single most important service of the Jewish year.

The first and most obvious is this: couldn't the NFL have shown some sensitivity? A 1 pm game, no overtime, and you've still got Kol Nidrei dinner on the table in time. (If someone else cooks it. An entirely separate subject we are not going to go into now.)

But there are other issues here as well. For perhaps the choice we will have to make, between something some of us want to do and something, I admit, that some of us feel we have to do, is really a chance to look into the depth of our lives, and understand one of the deepest messages of Yom Kippur.

"V'anitem et nafshoteichem!" The Biblical commandment calls us, on this day, to "afflict your souls." Tradition teaches that this means not to actually inflict harm or hurt upon ourselves, as would later be the custom in some Christian monastic communities, but to deny ourselves the sustaining forces of everyday life. To transcend the physical. To move beyond the body. To break through, if the process works, to a mystical plane of spirit and soul.

This is a holiday about self-sacrifice. About giving up, if only for a day, our needs and wants and desires. Doing this, while wanting that, is the classic starting position in the observance of Yom Kippur. There is a spiritual value in this longing look towards a stadium while on your way to a synagogue.

Finally, there is an existential value in the conflict as well. A reminder of who we are, and where we live, and the fact that our inner Jewish heart still beats at a slightly different pulse than the world around us. That we dwell, at one and the same time, as a part of, and apart from the landscape of America.

A conflict on a calendar? Or an opportunity to grow? It all depends on which way you look at it. And which tickets you choose to use, on a Sunday night in September.