Jocks, each

I wasn't planning on getting angry today. I was planning on spending some quality Passover time eating too much and avoiding my work. These are time honored traditions.

And I also have tried real hard to avoid commenting on some stuff I have seen going on in the Jewish community because, hey, I wanna be good, so I wanna keep my mouth shut. So far, so good. But not today and not now.

There has been some hubbub within the Jewish community over the last few years because of a couple of young gentlemen who are rising stars in certain athletic fields. If I recall correctly, one is a baseball player and one is a basketball player and aren't we all SO proud of them for holding on to their Jewish heritage while climbing the ranks and maybe, one day, breaking the glesseleh ceiling that has kept religious Jews from the elite ranks of professional athletes.

Note - I am not dealing with the young woman who plays ping pong*, or the basketball team in Texas or anyone who runs any marathons. I'm talking about these two, and then one other, individuals because they are what's in my head right now.

In the case of these two gentlemen, much has been said about all the accommodations they make to minimize any potential desecration of the sabbath so that they can continue their upward movement without having to compromise their adherence to halacha. Sort of.

Listen, I like sports as much as the next guy, or at least the guy next to him. But it just seems to me that competing is not what Shabbat is about. Finding ways around the laws so that one can continue to compete doesn't seem right to me. Call me crazy, or fundamentalist or a Martian, but in my ever so humble opinion, Shabbat is not for hard-core competition. I recall, years ago, when a student in my class asked the rebbe if there was anything wrong with playing basketball on Shabbat if there is an eruv. The rabbi cautioned that it could lead to score keeping and writing things down, and it might lead to driving to games or who knows what else, but at the least, it would lead to a cheapening of what Shabbat is. And, yes, I'm being hypocritical because I have been known to play games on the Sabbath so there is certainly some measure of competition going on here. But I think that there has to be some halachic distinction between playing a 48 minute, semi-pro basketball game at an arena and trying to win a game of casino at my dining room table.

So, yeah, I'm sickened by this hero worship. But I have held my tongue so that everyone can suck at the existential teat of fame by group-affiliation. Look...he's a religious Jew and he is playing minor league ball so my identity as a religious Jew doesn't have to inevitably indicate that there is no chance for my proving to the world that I got game.

Today, however, I saw an article on the ESPN website about a student at what is called a "Jewish Day School" (it is a pluralistic school with which I have no personal affiliation). He runs. I'm not saying I understand why, but he runs. And he developed a connection to his religiosity and decided that it was inappropriate for him to engage in competitive running on Shabbat. In fact, according to the article, he researched it and cited a well known and respected Jewish authority (the Ta"Z) to support his decision. So he wasn't going to run. Kudos to him.

But then the coach of his team was quoted as not understanding the decision, and trying to convince him to run ("Oliver's coach showed him, using numbers, how his absence would impact the team's chance to win") Imagine that. At a Jewish school, the coach was trying to guilt a student who was expressing his Judaism into doing something that went against that student's Jewish ideals. Disgusting, if you ask me. The kid could have found a way out but he wanted to live his convictions and the AUTHORITY FIGURE tried to push him away from being his authentic self. The other kids on the team froze him out (""If you're not going to race, don't show up. No one wants to see your face."). His mother tried to push him into it saying he "owed" it to his team. Not that he owed anything to a few thousand years of tradition, just to a bunch of high school kids who wear shorts and run o that they can get a medal. Good job supporting your son, ma. His own cousin questioned the decision.

How are we not shaming THEM? How are we not teaching the middot that celebrate adherence to halacha? Why are we so fixated on winning and proving to the non-Jews that we are like them, so much so that we sacrifice some aspect of our own actual beliefs? Why didn't the school hold this runner up as a model of something incredible and special? How could they let this peer pressure and bullying go on?

Why do we look up to those who justify their pushing the envelope and not those who say "I'm happier following the rules as they are, not as I need them to be?" Maybe orthodox Jews aren't meant to be professional athletes. Maybe we are meant to be orthodox Jews for whom Sabbath observance is more important. I admire this one student not because he represents the Jewish community, because, sadly, the community has become corrupted. I admire him because he represents what the community SHOULD be.




*yes, I should be lauding the young woman for her decision to default rather than play on Shabbat but I haven't seen an article which says that she was pressured by her Jewish community to abandon her spiritual identity.