You had to be there
A tip of my Red Sox cap to Yankees’ pitcher Domingo German, who threw a perfect game last night (retiring 27 Oakland batters without issuing a walk or giving up a hit). Baseball is the one sport where on any given night something can happen that you as a fan may have never seen before. At the beginning of every major-league game, an average pitcher facing a lineup of average hitters has a .000983 percent chance of pitching a perfect game. This perfect game was only the 24th in the history of the sport!
The only way to truly appreciate such a feat is to be present to it in the moment. It’s simply not the same on replay. Whether you are a fan of the team or not, you hang on every pitch over the last 12 outs of the game to see something that few have ever achieved. A friend texted me earlier today to tell me that he and his son had turned the game off after the first inning last night to go to bed — something they never do — in preparation for an early morning flight. I understand the terrible disappointment they are feeling today.
A few weeks ago, something poignant happened during services that moved our president Matt Schiering to note in his announcements that we never know what we might miss if we are not in synagogue on any given day. There are so many Shabbat mornings when I walk out of the building after the service thinking the very same thing to myself. You simply never know what you are going to be a part of, and if you aren’t here, you never know what you’re going to miss.
It might be as simple as a 6 year-old girl making her way across the aisle to sit with an unrelated 60 year-old woman. It may be a 95 year-old man standing in front of the Torah to give thanks for another birthday. It may be a person who is deaf reading from the Torah in front of the congregation for the very first time. It may be the naming of a baby belonging to a family you’ve never met, or a 50 year-old person returning to the synagogue where they grew up for the first time in 35 years.
The synagogue experience is not necessarily about prayer. Or mourning, or music, or meditation or memory. Or celebration, or causes or community. Or food or friendship. Or obligation. Or study. Or a heartfelt moment of vulnerability. The synagogue experience may be about any one of these things, about all of these things, or about something else entirely.
Only you can conclude what the synagogue experience is for you. To understand the meaning of it for yourself, you have to be there. If you sleep late, check out early, or pass entirely, know you might be missing something special, something you will probably never experience at a ballpark or anywhere other than the synagogue.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Craig Scheff
In the big inning God created the seventh-inning stretch
“What are you going to do Friday night?”
I just heard it again! At first, I didn’t understand the question. My initial answer was, “What I always do on the first Friday of the month! I’m going to go to our OJC family service and and then home to have Shabbat dinner!” But by the third time I was asked the question over the last two days, I understood. One person went so far as to inquire whether I am among those who would leave a television on somewhere in the house in order to watch the baseball game. While I understand that it is the practice of some Sabbath-observant people to stay within the letter of the law in this fashion, I personally don’t believe that doing so would be in keeping with the spirit of the day.
Before 2004, watching the Red Sox (my favorite baseball team) play would instantly result in my blood pressure elevating to 170/110. Not a healthy experience. Since that miraculous fall of 2004, however, I am much less personally bound up with the Bosox (and the bp is normal). Even so, when it comes to playing the Yankees, old wounds resurface and scars are revealed. Honestly, it’s hard to enjoy the moment, and I often feel relieved just to have it behind me, win or lose (though the satisfaction of the win does linger a bit longer than the pain of defeat). Don’t get me wrong—I love the sport and will watch the Sox any time I am free to do so; I just won’t put them ahead of the other priorities in my life … like Shabbat.
As we begin the Torah again this week, we read that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, for on it God desisted (“shavat”) from all God’s work. But to what end? For what purpose? Later we are told that we are to “keep” or “guard” the Sabbath as an eternal covenant for all generations, a remembrance that God created the world in six days, and that on the seventh God rested and recharged, or perhaps more literally “re-souled” (vayinafash).
Shabbat is a holy day because God said so, regardless of how we “keep” it. But its potential effect on us is only realized in how we spend it. If it is not qualitatively different than our other days off from work, we have not truly kept it. If “re-souling” is the goal, our time should be spent reflecting on, and deepening our appreciation of, the world we’ve played a role in creating. We should engage with people and matters that uplift us. We should feed our souls the things that nourish us spiritually; we are not meant to fill ourselves with more agitation and anxiety, or even with the short-lived pleasures with which we engage on any other day.
So why would I choose to ruin the most precious hours of my week over a game that has no bearing on my self-worth, but could only serve to further drain my battery and leave me exhausted, amped up and sleepless, win or lose? If the Sox lose, I’m glad I didn’t suffer; if they win, I’ll watch the highlights. And if they win in some miraculous fashion as if God had intervened (as God did, according to some, in 2004), then I’ll record the replay and save it for posterity.
Not that it really means anything to me. And not that God would punish me or my team if I did sneak a peek through the neighbors’ window . . . .
On the other hand, if it were Game 7 of the World Series, I might need to revisit the question . . . .
Oh boy, do I need to talk to my Rabbi. Or my therapist.
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Craig Scheff
Two Rabbis, One Voice, Three Opinions 
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