Posted June 8, 2006 by Rabbi Judy Abrams. Please refer to Maqom's home page for information about previous passages.
I thought you might enjoy reading the introduction to this book. Enjoy!
Introduction
Judith Z. Abrams
What is so Jewish about America's pastime?
Among all our national sports, why is it that it is baseball that
is so prominent in Jewish life? What is it about baseball that
caught the imagination of Jewish immigrants, writers and rabbis…and
still does to this very day? These are the questions this book
seeks to answer. For there is, undeniably, a link between baseball
and Judaism. We see in the essays in this book sociological, literary
and theological analyses which demonstrate how deeply baseball
permeates and reflects Jewish life, culture and faith. Actual
sermons, as well as a rare first-person history of a Jewish major
league player's wife and an essay that accompanied a set of Jewish
major leaguer baseball cards, will document that this is no mere
academic or theological discussion. Rabbis are actually giving
sermons on baseball. This is a real phenomenon, not just a theoritcal
possibility. The authors of these pieces encompass the full spectrum
of Jewish life, from Reform to Orthodox, from secular scholars
to mystics.
One of the earliest works of kabbalah (Sefer Yetsirah) establishes
three realms of being: space (olam), time (shanah) and the human
soul (nefesh). It is as esoteric as halakhah is prosaic. Hillel
Goelman explores the correlation of baseball to these three Jewish
mystical concepts. He demonstrates how the game of baseball has
mythic powers to give meaning to human life by explaining the
most profound mysteries of our existence. An individual, through
baseball, can locate himself in space, in time and in God's plan
for all human souls. His evocation of classical texts, secular
scholarship and literary analysis combine to explain why baseball,
more than any other sport, is so intrinsically meaningful for
Jews. His postscript reveals that his essay is no mere academic
treatise: he has lived, and is still living, in baseball's boundless
sea of time that transcends space and even the death of his father.
While the role of Jews in baseball is frequently examined in literature,
it is seen in visual arts as well. Ori Z. Soltes examines the
role of Jews and baseball in the visual arts as testimony to baseball's
utility as a means by which Jews could attain a comfortable identity
as mainstream Americans. Focusing particularly on Hank Greenberg,
he notes that the player had many messianic qualities, going so
far as to liken him to Bar Kochba and Theodore Herzl. Greenberg
played in Detroit, home base to the antisemites Father Couglin
and Henry Ford. By not playing in a crucial game that fell on
Yom Kippur, he openly subscribed to his religious identity and
powerfully enfranchised Jews to express their Judaism more openly.
The confluence of the World Series and the High Holydays is an
issue that yearly faces Jewish baseball fans. Tracing the decisions
of Jewish players and owners through the decades, Jeffrey S. Gurock
analyzes the meanings that Hank Greenberg's, Sandy Koufax's and
Shawn Green's decisions to play, or not to play on the High Holydays,
reflected about Jews' comfort in American society and culture.
Though major league baseball has yet to take account of the Jewish
calendar, it has accommodated Jewish fans by providing kosher
food and even minyanim (prayer quorum) at various ballparks. As
Jews' position in society changes, and particularly as the acceptance
of Jews in mainstream society has grown, so Jews, and especially
Jewish baseball players' decisions to play or not to play on Yom
Kippur has changed. What was considered messianic by Soltes (Greenberg
not playing on Yom Kippur) becomes a decision to balance Jewish
and American identities in a different era, as seen by Gurock.
"Generation to generation" is the theme that Rebecca
Alpert investigates in her examination of baseball in Jewish American
writing. Her thorough exploration of baseball and the connection
of generations includes the way baseball mediates not just between
fathers and sons but between mothers and daughters, grandparents
and grandchildren. She cites many newspaper articles and a sermon,
which was apparently delivered and then published, to document
the reality about which she writes in Jewish life, not only in
Jewish writing.
While it is the players that may, perhaps naturally, be the focus
of our attention, Jews have had a large role to play behind the
scenes. Eric Schulmiller's presentation of his "Avot"
and, one might add, "Imahot" of baseball is a delightful,
yet substantive, double play of classical biblical and rabbinic
texts and an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball history. He fleshes
out, in great detail, the back-stories, so to speak, of many of
the legendary Jewish figures in baseball history. In his biography,
he, too, acknowledges the importance of passing on a love of baseball
from father to son.
Our holiest texts, especially Torah and Talmud, often come down
to us through the mediation of commentators who make these sometimes-epigraphic
texts comprehensible and loveable. Jordan Parr argues that the
experience of baseball is likewise made memorable, and desirable,
through the mediation of radio commentators. A baseball game is
like a session of Talmud study, opines Parr, and one's fondness
for the commentator can translate into deeply etched memories
and an enhancement of the inherent meaning of the moment.
Joshua Segal's article examines the physical, spiritual and intellectual
aspects of baseball that are similar to Judaism. Stephen Fuchs'
essay testifies to the power his baseball idols had on him. His
role models actually affected the way he participated in sports.
He did not play a competitive tennis match because of what his
role models, Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, did.
Both Reuven Goldfarb and David Wechsler-Azen concentrate not only
on the correspondence between the players' positions and the usual
schematic diagram of the Zohar's sefirot (processes within God)
but see similarities to Jewish spirituality in all sorts of other
aspects of the game and Judaism as well. Again, the fact that
we have two articles supports my contention that these connections
are real and meaningful….not just a theoretical conceit.
Dan Gordon also sees mystical aspects of Judaism in baseball,
particularly the four-leveled interpretation of Torah known as
Pardes and the four bases of a baseball diamond. In addition,
he explores the parallels between Maimonides' seven levels of
charity and the seven ways of contributing to one's team.
The article of Shmuel Jablon and the responsa written by him and
his elementary (!) school students testify to the reality of baseball
in Jewish education today in a day school setting. Martin Abramowitz
documents his (successful) quest to create a set of Jewish Major
League Player baseball cards. A unique piece of oral history is
provided by May Abrams, widow of Cal Abrams, a Jewish major leaguer.
Rabbis Avi Schulman, Louis Rieser, Michael Cohen and Andrew Klein
(the latter basking in the miraculous World Series win of the
Boston Red Sox in 2004) contributed sermons they gave on the topic
of baseball. All these are testimony to the potency of baseball
in Jewish America's religious and social life.
Even with the bounty of writing we have here, there is still more
left to cover. Articles that were not included in this book, but
should be in any truly exhaustive examination of Judaism and baseball
would include an exploration of baseball in Israel, the similarity
of the baseball field to the Biblical tabernacle and the Temples
and the way a baseball stadium resembles a standard page of the
Babylonian Talmud. (The infield is the Mishnah and Gemara, the
outfield is the commentaries of Rashi, the Tosafists, etc., and
the people in the stands are the students.) An article documenting
the engulfing loss generated by the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn,
a wound that is felt by some to this day, and its similarity to
the feelings engendered by the destruction of the Temples, would
be needed to make this volume complete. More pieces documenting
the importance of baseball in Jewish life would have been welcome.
For example, Rabbi Mindy A. Portnoy not only wrote a children's
book, Matzah Ball (KARBEN, 1994), about a child taking Pesach
food to a baseball game, but celebrated her twentieth year in
the rabbinate by throwing out the opening pitch at Camden Yards
in Baltimore, an event arranged by her congregation.
Truly, America's pastime has uniquely
strong bonds with Judaism; bonds stronger than that of any other
sport with our faith. And baseball, uniquely among our major national
sports, fosters a bond between the generations. Indeed, that was
the motivation that started me on the path to editing this book:
I wanted to make a connection to my son through baseball. He is
an avid Astros fan and, in order to understand his world better,
I came to be a fan myself. Both he and I could see the connections
between Judaism and baseball, connections far beyond the issue
of playing on the High Holydays.
Thus, the reality became a book and hopefully the book will foster
the reality: a connection of generation to generation of Jewish
baseball fans.
Go to http://www.wm.edu/religion/publications.php to order.