“Let’s Play Only One” (1)—a Kiddush HaShem?
Rabbi Yaakov Bieler
Yom HaKippurim 5765
These days, religion is hardly on the back burner of the world’s consciousness.
On the uglier side, proponents of various
political causes have perpetrated atrocities in the name of their
conception of the true faith, justifying the results as the
fulfillment of the dire fate that they believe awaits all those who
oppose their perverse and close-minded beliefs. On the lighter side, we encounter the non-Jew Esther, a.k.a. Madonna, and her Hollywood jet set cronies, who have taken up some permutation of Kabala, wearing red “Ayin HaRa” (Evil Eye) bracelets, eating Kosher food, and engaging in some type of Rosh HaShana observance in Israel, no less. (2)
The newest celebrity of the fleeting moment who has brought religion to the forefront of at least the American sports world’s attention, is Shawn Green, who has played baseball with distinction in the Major Leagues for the past eleven years, first for the Toronto Blue Jays and currently the Los Angeles Dodgers. Although his team is currently locked in an incredibly close pennant race with their traditional and despised rivals, the San Francisco Giants, Green has announced that he will not play on Yom HaKippurim—at least not both of the games that are scheduled for Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.
In terms of sitting out games on Yom HaKippurim, Shawn Green is not a pioneer, but rather is following a practice that was initiated in 1934 by the great, powerful Detroit Tiger outfielder and homerun hitter Hank Greenberg, poignantly depicted in the award-winning documentary “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg” which Ari Pinchot helped produce, and repeated approximately thirty years later by the extraordinary Dodger pitcher, Sandy Koufax.
In an article in the online Baseball Almanac, Brian Moynihan (3) quotes the researcher Peter Levine who explains Greenberg’s first playing on Rosh HaShana, and then sitting out on Yom HaKippurim in the following manner:
Greenberg’s choice appeared as a critical dilemma—how to balance loyalty to parents, religion, and tradition, with commitment to his American profession and his desire to participate fully in American life. By not playing on Yom HaKippurim, Greenberg’s life became an example for second generation Jews to follow, because his refusal to participate balanced the various elements that they were struggling with at the time.
Moynihan concludes, “To the Jews of the 1930’s, Greenberg was a beacon, a strong admirable figure in a time of struggle [for acceptance by the broader society.]” In fact, the rabbi of the
By the time we get to the 1965 first game of the World Series between the Minnesota Twins and Koufax’ Dodgers, American society had changed to the point where his refusal to play was not interpreted as a symbol with specific relevance for the Jews of America, but rather the act of “a personal role model, an individual who stood by his principles regardless of what people would think.” (5)
This brings us to Shawn Green.
Green was not brought up in an Orthodox household, as was Hank Greenberg, and therefore did not have parents and neighbors exerting social pressure upon him to at least observe some of the traditional Jewish practices. Greenberg’s father David said, “Yom Kippur was different. I put my foot down and Henry obeyed.” (6) Greenberg reported that after playing on Rosh HaShana, “I caught !!! from the parishioners, I caught !!! from some rabbis. I didn’t know what to do.” (7) Greenberg even asked a “She’ailat Chacham” (an inquiry directed to an expert in Jewish law) regarding playing baseball, and was told by his Halachic authority that since Rosh HaShana was a joyous occasion, playing was in the spirit of the day, as opposed to the solemnity that is supposed to inform Yom HaKippurim, which precluded playing. (8)
Nor is Green a pitcher, who usually plays every fourth day, so therefore if he doesn’t pitch the first game, he can always play in the next one, as Koufax did. Green is an everyday player, and one upon whom the team and its fans rely heavily.
Furthermore, from the Jewish perspective, on the one hand his
being traded to Los Angeles was in answer to a request to play for a
team located in a city with a large Jewish population. (9) Yet it was
only in Toronto, when the Jewish community began to reach out to him,
that he first became interested in his Jewish roots, and took
seriously the need to serve as a role model to many Jewish children
who idolize him, as well as taking an active role in Jewish
charities. (10) Green grew up in an unobservant home, never had a Bar
Mitzva, and is intermarried. So he certainly could qualify for the
category of “Tinok SheNishba” (a Jewish individual who
was kidnapped while a child and raised among people who did not make
him aware of his Jewish identity and the observances that it
entailed). (11) He wants to be a Jewish role model, but has neither
the education nor the commitment to do so in a entirely consistent
manner.
Which leads to the following question: Can we say that despite Shawn Green’s lack of Jewish knowledge and connection to tradition, his decision to sit out on Yom HaKippurim is a “Kiddush HaShem” (a sanctification of God’s Name), a statement on the part of someone, even peripherally connected to Jewish culture, to the effect that it is important to make sacrifices for one’s beliefs and heritage? Green tries to explain his decision in the following manner:
“It’s something I feel is an important thing to do, partly as a representative of the Jewish community, and as far as my being a role model in sports for Jewish kids, to basically say that baseball, or anything, isn’t bigger than your religion and your roots.” (12)
David Lipman, (13) however, challenges the very rationale that Green is providing:
It’s one thing for a player to sit out a game because
of his religious beliefs and be lauded for his actions. Such a player
is truly a role model and deserves the praise he
receives. It’s another thing altogether for a player to sit
out a game and cite his role model responsibilities as the major
reason for doing so.
Does doing something exclusively for the positive impression that such an action will make on others, when there is no personal gain to oneself—in this case, the player is actually interrupting an impressive streak of consecutive games to sit out on Yom HaKippurim (14) —an action that should be criticized instead of lauded? Shawn Green’s decision to play Friday evening and sit out Saturday, a sort of Solomonic compromise, clearly reflects his ambivalence, sensing loyalty to both his adopted Jewish community and his teammates and fans. Which leads to another question: For whom is it more difficult to sacrifice for one’s religion, and consequently such a sacrifice is more meaningful—someone who is only barely connected, who lacks education, community, ongoing ritual involvements, religious family life, the encouragement of family and friends, or someone for whom everything is routinized, where it has all been obvious and prescribed for as long as one can remember, where we take for granted what we do to such an extent that we don’t think very deeply about it, and we hardly recognize the commitment that we are called upon to make under extraordinary circumstances?
The 16th of the 53 sins for which we confess over and over during the course of Yom HaKippurim is that we have transgressed by perpetrating “Chillul HaShem” (the profanation of God’s Name). RaMBaM, in Mishna Tora, Hilchot Yesodei HaTora 5:10, clarifies what constitutes a “Chillul HaShem”:
Anyone who sins willingly and consciously, without duress, and violates one of the commandments stated in the Tora, with calmness of emotion and out of spite, this constitutes a “Chillul HaShem”. For this reason, it is stated regarding a false oath, (VaYikra
“Chillul HaShem” is the converse of “Kiddush HaShem” (sanctification of God’s Name), the two concepts appearing in the same verse in VaYikra 22:32, “And you will not profane My Holy Name, and I will be sanctified in the midst of the Jewish people, I am HaShem Who Sanctifies you.” The most dramatic and extreme form of “Kiddush HaShem” is described in the liturgical poem read during the Mussaf service, entitled “Eileh Ezkera” (These I will remember). During the course of describing the horrific deaths suffered by the Ten Martyrs during the Roman persecutions, the author writes, “LEKADESH SHEM SHAMAYIM Masru Atzman” (in order to sanctify the Name of Heaven, they gave themselves up). But in addition to discussing martyrdom as a form of “Kiddush HaShem” in Hilchot Yesodei HaTora 5:1, the same source in RaMBaM that defined “Chillul HaShem” in terms of everyday transgressions of any of the Tora’s commandments (5:10), also presents “Kiddush HaShem” in a similar context:
…And so anyone who separates himself from a transgression or performs a commandment not for any ulterior motive, not because of fear or terror, and not to try to obtain honor, but because of the Creator, May He Be Blessed, as did Yosef when he refused to succumb to the seductions of his master’s wife, behold this is a case of “Kiddush HaShem”.
RaMBaM goes even further when he associates “Chillul HaShem” and “Kiddush HaShem” with more subtle behaviors that may not directly fall under the rubric of the Tora’s positive and negative commandments, in Hilchot Yesodei HaTora 5:1:
…And so if a scholar (15) is very careful with regard to his/her deportment, and his/her speaking with others is always measured and calm, s/he is empathetic towards the people with whom s/he comes into contact, s/he is always welcoming when s/he sees them, even if they are insulting to him/her, s/he does not react in kind, s/he honors others, even if they do not return the compliment, always conducts all business dealings honestly…to the point where everyone praises him/her and love him/her and strive to emulate his/her actions, behold such an individual has performed “Kiddush HaShem”… (The converse can be deduced from simply reversing the qualities listed, as is illustrated in Yoma 96a.)
A number of anecdotes appear in the Midrash and Talmud illustrating the “Kiddush HaShem” that can be achieved by simply following the principle of “HaShavat Aveida” and applying it to someone to whom one is not obligated to return what s/he has lost. Consider the following well-known story from Yerushalmi Bava Metzia 2:5:
R. Shimon ben Shetach supported himself by making linen cloth. His students said to him, “Rebbe, desist from this (messy, dirty work). We will purchase for you a donkey and you can make a living by transporting things for others.” They went, bought a donkey from an Arab, and found that it had hanging from its neck a precious jewel. They brought the donkey and the jewel to R. Shimon ben Shetach and said to him, “From this purchase, you will no longer have to work at all!” He said to them, “Why?” They said to him, “We bought the donkey from an Arab, and it has a jewel hanging from its neck.” He said to them, “Did the seller know that this was the case?” They said to him, “No.” He said to them, “I will go and return it.” They said to him, “Didn’t R. Huna say in the yeshiva of Bar Gozlin in the name of R. Hativan, in the presence of Rebbe: ‘Even according to the opinion that it is prohibited to steal from an idolater, everyone agrees that a finder can keep the idolater’s lost object’?” (He said to them) “What do you think—Shimon ben Shetach is a BARBARIAN?” R. Shimon ben Shetach considered hearing a non-Jew say, “Blessed is the God of the Jews” as more valuable than all of the wealth possible to acquire in this world.
In this instance, going “Lifnim MiShurat HaDin” (going beyond the letter of the law) is not only the catalyst for a “Kiddush HaShem”, but R. Shimon ben Shetach deemed not acting in accordance with such a principle the mark of someone who is unrefined and uncultured, let alone spiritually insensitive, and uninterested in pursuing “Kiddush HaShem” opportunities. Unfortunately, traditionally observant Jews are sometimes insensitive to such a way of thinking. R. Shelomoh Danziger, in a contribution to a symposium in Jewish Action entitled “Israel among the Nations”, (16) wrote, “…our religious acts must not be perceived as a casual exercise in Jewish ethnicity, which is too often the case. To have a ‘Kiddush HaShem’ impact they must reflect an inner spirituality, not to be confused with external fervor and frenetic activity.”
Thinking about how to effect “Kiddush HaShem” is particularly appropriate during the Ten Days of Repentance as evidenced by the verse included in the special Amida (lit. the standing, i.e., the silent devotion recited while standing) for Rosh HaShana and Yom HaKippurim immediately before each time that the blessing “Baruch Ata HaShem HaMelech HaKadosh” (Blessed are You HaShem, the Holy King) in recited. In Yeshayahu 5:16 we read, “And the Lord of Hosts will be Exalted by means of justice, and the Holy God will be Sanctified by means of righteousness.” There is a dispute among the commentators as to the connotation of the verse. Whereas some, like RaDaK and the GR”A, interpret that God’s Stature will be heightened by His Performing acts of judgment and righteousness, RaShI explains:
When justice is performed in your (the Jewish people’s) midst, His Name becomes Exalted throughout the world. And God will be Sanctified via the righteous ones remaining in your midst.
Apparently, at least according to RaShI, the degree to which HaShem will be PERCEIVED as Holy depends upon the extent to which we sanctify Him by means of our exemplary deeds and serving as role models to other societies and cultures.
While Shawn Green may have been “Koneh Olamo BeSha’ah Achat” (earned a portion in the World to Come by a single act) (17) in light of where he is coming from Jewishly, and what he has decided to sacrifice to demonstrate his commitment such as it is, we would do well to learn from his example, and consider how we will embark on not only avoiding “Chillul HaShem” but also enacting “Kiddush HaShem” to the extent of our abilities, within our contexts, and in accordance with our religious sensibilities.
Gemar Chatima Tova.
(1) The great Chicago Cubs 1st baseman, Ernie Banks, is famous for enthusiastically saying, when facing a long double header, “Let’s play two!” See e.g., http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/B/Banks_Ernie.stm
(2) In an article in The Forward, Ami Eden compares the reactions of the Jewish community to Madonna’s fores into Kabala with Shawn Green’s decision to sit out one game on Yom HaKippurim. See http://www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=eden200409231247
(3) http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/greenberg_and_koufax.shtml
(4) http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies/HankGreenberg.htm
(5) Moynihan. See fn. 3.
(6) http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_came_yom_kippur.shtml
(7) Ibid.
(8) http://www.all-reviews.com/videos/life-hank-greenberg-2.htm
(9) http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=12483
(10) Ibid.
(11) See e.g., Shabbat 68b.
(12) http://www.jr.co.il/articles/baseball.txt
(13) http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2001/0926/1255598.html
(14) http://www.jr.co.il/articles/baseball.txt A previous streak of 415 consecutive games played came to an end in 2001 when Green sat out on Yom HaKippurim. See http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/print.php?id=12923
(15) Although RaMBaM refers to a scholar, it can be demonstrated that he believes that everyone ought to strive to become a scholar and therefore follow these guidelines for interacting with others.
(16) Jewish Action, Fall 5751/1990, p. 26.
See e.g., Avoda Zora 10b, 17a, 18