And it was morning and it was evening, the Seventh Game.
Gary Rosenblatt, Editor and Publisher of The Jewish Week
My
favorite contemporary Simchat Torah story was told to me by a close
friend who grew up in Pittsburgh. I offer it here in honor of Simchat
Torah, which is celebrated this year on Thursday evening and Friday, and
as the baseball season closes out this weekend. Nowadays, with the
expanded Major Leagues, divisional playoffs and Wild Card teams, the
World Series, long known as the October Classic, could very well linger
until November. But when I was growing up, the World Series invariably
fell out on the High Holy Days. (I used to imagine Ford Frick, the
commissioner at the time, consulting a luach, or Jewish calendar, each
year to pick the Series dates just to frustrate observant fans.) But it
was just such a convergence of the baseball schedule and the Jewish
holidays that led to the unique encounter described here …This is a story about the faith and joy that can bring us together (all too rarely), about the ephemeral nature of man’s yearnings and the eternity of God’s words. Mostly, though, it’s just a story that always makes me smile.
The year was 1960, when Simchat Torah — that joyous day when we complete, and begin again, the reading of the Torah — was about to start, just as the long Major League Baseball season was about to end.
Continue reading.Check out Jvillage’s High Holiday+
page.
No comments:
Post a Comment