Matzah Ball

--By the Tar Heeb

I am not a baseball fan.

I would go even further and say that I am a baseball hater. Growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina, I had two sports passions: the Charlotte Hornets and the Carolina Panthers. Both basketball and football are more exciting than baseball (possibly objectively and definitely subjectively), thus cementing my allegiance to the sports. I also played both, in JCC leagues for basketball and middle school for football.

Little League, the so-called quintessential American experience, eluded me as it does for many Jewish boys due to the overwhelming priority that my parents put in Hebrew School. The lack of baseball viewing and playing opportunities while growing up a Jewish kid in Charlotte resulted in my apathy and subsequent hatred of the game, which is pretty easy to do considering the snail's pace at which it is played. So it was much to my surprise when the worlds of Judaism and baseball collided for me on Monday night and of holiday: Passover.

My office had decided a few weeks ago to buy tickets to the Washington Nationals' home opener and when our secretary asked if I wanted to go, the only allowable response was “yes,” since it was an afternoon game. I didn’t give the game a second thought until I was packing to go home for Seder and realized the game would smack dab in the middle of Passover. I couldn’t think of a worse combination.

I had come to terms with the fact that I had to spend three hours watching baseball and conjuring up topics for conversation with my co-workers, but now without partking in two of my top three pastimes: 1) drinking beer, 2) eating food and 3) belligerently quoting baseball movies (for someone who hates baseball, I sure do love baseball movies). No. 3 on my list was still a possibility, but without the guise of being at least mildly drunk, I’d just look like a crazy person.

In the end, I just sucked it up. I chatted with my co-workers, pretending not to be ridiculously jealous of the tons of beer and food they were expensing to the company. I made SEVERAL laps around the entire stadium and even contemplated building a bear (yes, they have Build-A-Bear station at the Nationals Ballpark). And ultimately I realized that the kind of suffering I had to endure by going to a baseball game on Passover is exactly in the spirit of the holiday.

I just had to remember that no matter how rooted my hatred of baseball is, it is nothing like the Exodus from Egypt.

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Vayechi: Coming to a Theater Near You

This week we end the book of Genesis, and fittingly so we say goodbye to the last of the Patriarchs, Jacob. This Parsha, Vayechi, begins with Jacob lying on his death bed, blessing the sons of his own favorite son Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, fitting bestowing onto them the covenant between G-d and the Jewish people:

"Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a company of peoples; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession" (Gen. 47:4)

The story does take an interesting twist, as Jacob decides to give the blessing reserved for the elder to the younger, Ephraim. This ironically enrages Joseph -- who himself was the youngest, and also favorite, of his father -- but Jacob explains: "He also shall be great; howbeit his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations." (Gen. 48:19)

This is an interesting bookend to both the life of Jacob and the book of Genesis, which is chock full of sibling rivalry. Starting with the most famous sibling rivalry, that of Cain and Abel (and we all know how that turned out); we move to Isaac and Ishmael; and then onto a story, that of Jacob and Esau, strikingly similar to the current Parsha, to Joseph's exile to Egypt at the hands of his own brothers, finally arriving back at the current situation: a younger son being given preferential treatment.

It is unclear in the text whether or not G-d told Jacob to bestow this blessing upon Ephraim instead of Manasseh or if Jacob was projecting his own sibling-dynamic biases. Regardless of the motivation, it is clear that Jacob's choice would have consequences.

Last night I saw a sneak preview of Charlie Wilson's War, the true story of how a playboy congressman, a renegade CIA agent and a beautiful Houston socialite joined forces to lead the largest and most successful covert operation in history. Their efforts contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

I enjoyed the movie a great deal. The dialogue between Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (CIA Agent Gust Avrakotos) was witty and entertaining amidst the horror the Afghani people suffered during the Soviet invasion of their country.

Unlike many covert operations the United States government has undertaken throughout its more recent history, be it the Bay of Pigs or Iran Contra, Wilson’s operation was deemed a major success at the time, but ultimately failed at the United States refused to take the steps necessary to rebuild Afghanistan after it had been ravaged by war, allowing the fundamentalist Taliban to take control of the country. We all know the end product of this miscalculation. Without giving too much away, Wilson struggles with the US government's incapability to finish the job he catalyzed. Prior to the credits appears this quote from the real Charlie Wilson: "Those things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world. And then we fucked up the endgame."

So much written in the Torah is both "glorious" and "changed the world," but you have to question whether some decisions made were the "will of god" or simply poor decision based on the free will of man. The consequences of these actions are seen today, as religious fundamentalism fuels so much of the hate amongst people throughout the world. Will this story eventually have a happy ending?

In Charlie Wilson's War, Avrakotos tells Wilson the story of a Zen master and a troubled villager. The villager is worried about the repercussions of his son getting a horse, then injuring himself on the horse, and then his inability to go to war due to his injury. Each time the villager goes to the Zen master, the Zen master replies, "We shall see," highlighting both the future’s uncertainty and also teaching the villager to look past the surface of what seems like a foregone conclusion. This week, as we turn to the next book of the Torah and we turn the page in our world's history, "We shall see" if foregone conclusions are realized or more complex consequences come to pass.

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B'reishit: How? Why? Written by Whom?

When I sat down to write on the first Parsha in the Torah, B’reishit, the story’s synopsis was not the first thought to come to mind. Instead, I remembered two books in which the infamous creation story is referenced, each offers unique insight into questions often asked when speaking of the text.

I. Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

Written by Michael Shermer, this book grapples with the various incarnations of creationism that have manifested over the year. Shermer, editor-in-chief of Skeptic Magazine and evangelical Christian turned defender of evolution, admits that his task is not an easy one. Combating faith with science (and vice-versa) leaves no one satisfied, and Shermer's book emphasizes that there is no level playing field for evolution and creation to be debated, let alone allow anyone to proclaim a winner. Like any good scientist, Shermer creates a model, the Separate-Worlds Model, to better explain his central thesis.

... science and religion are neither in conflict nor in agreement but are non-overlapping. Before science began its ascent four centuries ago, religion provided an explanation for the natural world in form of various cosmogony myths. Since the scientific revolution, however, science has taken over the job of explaining the natural world, making obsolete ancient religious sagas of origins and creations ... (page 120)

While I agree with much of what Shermer claims in his book and consider myself an evolutionist, the model outlined above polarizes religion and science instead of letting them live in separate worlds, as his model’s nomenclature would suggest. I believe that B’reishit and evolution answer fundamentally different questions. While much of the literal Genesis story can be discounted by evolutionary theory, the question of why the Earth was created cannot be scientifically proven. Evolution and various other theories such as the Big Bang explain how the Earth was created and how life developed on this planet. However, the why is a supernatural question, to which Shermer would concede: “Science is not equipped to evaluate supernatural explanations for our observations ... science leaves their consideration to the domain of religious faith.” (page 98)

The null hypothesis of all Western religions is that God exists and created the Earth; until science can disprove said hypothesis, religion will always have relevance. Shermer ends his book with his own creation story, using a skeleton of the Genesis story almost satirically:

And God created pongids and hominids with 98 percent genetic similarity, naming two of them Adam and Eve, In the book in which God explained how He did all this, the Bible, in one chapter He said He created Adam and Eve together out of the dust at the same time, but in another chapter He said He created Adam first, then later created Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs. This caused confusion in the valley of the shadow of doubt, so God created theologians to sort it out. (page 162)

II. Ishmael

Written by Daniel Quinn, this novel personfies his teachings through a series of lessons taught to a man by a telekinetic gorilla in order to save the world. Quinn’s central thesis is that there are two distinct societal norms throughout human history: "Takers" and "Leavers." Takers are those that use Earth's resources as if a birthright, with no real consideration for other life forms or the Earth itself. Leavers are those that live in harmony with other life forms and do not see themselves are rulers here on Earth.

Quinn asserts that the Taker society began when food began being kept under lock and key, spurred on by the Agricultural revolution. Quinn sees no problem with subsistence farming, but points to B’reishit as the beginning of Taker society. God punishes Adam and Eve for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil by banishing them the Garden of Eden. Quinn explains that eating the fruit of the Tree provides the gods with the knowledge they need to rule the world - the knowledge of who shall live and who shall die. The fruit nourishes only gods, but they realized that if Adam ("man") were to eat from the tree, he might think he gained the gods' wisdom, and - in his arrogance - destroy the world and himself: "And so they said to him, you may eat of every tree in the garden, save the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day you eat of that tree, you will certainly die." (Genesis 2:16)

Ishmael makes the point that the story of the Fall of Man, which the Takers have adopted as their own, was developed by Leavers to explain the Takers' origin. If it were of Taker origin, the story would be one of liberating ascent, and instead of being forbidden to Adam, the fruit of the Tree would have been thrust upon him.

Ishmael and his student go on to discuss how, for the ancient Semitic herders among whom the tale originated, the story of Cain killing Abel symbolizes the Leaver being killed off and their lands taken so that they could be cultivated. These ancient herders realized that the Takers were acting as if they were gods themselves, with all the wisdom of what is good and evil and how to rule the world. As a result, the gods banished these people from the Garden and they were brought from a life of bounty in the hands of the gods to one of being the accursed "tillers of the soil." (page 173)

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Balak: Ma Tovu at Camp Judaea

How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!
And I, with Your great loving-kindness, shall enter Your House; I shall prostrate myself toward Your Holy Temple in the fear of You.
O Lord, I love the dwelling of Your house and the place of the residence of Your glory.
Come, let us prostrate ourselves and bow; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker.
But, as for me, may my prayer to You, O Lord, be in an acceptable time. O God, with Your abundant kindness, answer me with the truth of Your salvation. (Num. 24:5)

What else could you possibly choose to discuss in this week’s Parsha, Balak, except for this curveball of all curveballs in the Torah? Balaam is sent by Balak to curse the people of Israel, but is overcome by the beauty he finds at the end of his journey, and his blessing, the “Ma Tovu,” is recited. Whenever I sing “Ma Tovu,” I close my eyes and try to imagine the beauty that this man must have seen that caused him to betray Balak. I would then open my eyes and find that beauty: the lake at Camp Judaea, my childhood summertime home.

I went to Camp Judaea from 1993 to 1998 as a camper, and returned as staff the summer after graduating high school in 2002. Since Camp Judaea is one of five junior camps Young Judaea (the Zionist Youth Movement of America) sponsors throughout the country, the camp isn’t affiliated with any religious movement of Judaism in particular. However, Camp Judaea tends to resemble the Conservative movement in many of its practices, including maintaining a kosher dining facility, observing Shabbat, and holding minyan services every morning.

Services are held in a roofed, open-air structure with benches in a semi-circle surrounding the Bima, all of which facing our lake. We would open every morning service with “Ma Tovu.” I would always close my eyes upon the beginning of the prayer. I noticed my wet feet. The morning dew had collected during the trek from the cabins to flag pole to services, and it was more than noticeable. My stomach would grumble. There was at least an hour between when I wake and when I eat at camp, and my stomach was always at the midpoint of this period and letting me know about it. I'd listen to the ambient sounds around me: other campers singing, feet shuffling across rocks, birds singing their morning songs - all of these sounds flooded my auditory landscape. I would open my eyes and look out on the sun's reflections skipping across the lake, signaling the beginning of another wonderful summer day in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina.

This Shabbat, I will not be in services to hear this Parsha read. I’ll be with 30 of my friends, tubing down the Potomac River in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. I can think of no better way to recall my camp days than to be in nature, on a body of water. To me, that is truly “Ma Tovu.”

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B’haalot'kha: Miles Davis in the Desert

Imagine being alive to see the greats of the jazz era hone their craft. John Coltrane. Charlie Parker. Miles Davis. Three legends of not only jazz music, but of any genre of music in modern history. When these three jazz icons - or any of their peers - got on stage or a street corner to wail on their instruments, people gathered to listen and be taken to a higher place. God forsees these jazz-induced orgasmic experiences in this week’s Parsha, B’ha’alotkha.

In the portion, God commands Moses:

Make two silver trumpets for calling the community... you shall blow the trumpet and you will be remembered before God, and you will be delivered from your enemies. On that day of rejoicing and in your festive season and at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets. (Num. 10:1-10)

I find it important to point out that these call horns were “silver trumpets” and not the shofarim used later in the Torah, and even today. The shofar, the horn of a ram, did not and does not compare to the trumpet in terms of tune and pitch, but cannot be rivaled in raw power. The shofar, after all, made the walls of Jericho come tumbling down. But power was not what the Israelites had in the desert - they were weak, and complained constantly.

This whole Parsha is about Moses, the greatest leader in our people’s history, doubting his own leadership skills due to his people’s constant complaints. The Israelites needed finesse, entertainment. The shofar would have only been another reason to whine, due to its lack of objective beauty, visually and aurally. The silver trumpet was given to the people to ease their superficial suffering. The generations to follow had the power to take hold of the shofar.

I have experience with both the shofar and the trumpet. When my parents went to Israel for the first time, when I was 8 years old, they returned 10 days later, bearing gifts. The present I revered most was a small, black shofar my father had bought for me in Jerusalem. I immediately began to blow, day and night, in preparation for the New Year. The sound and smell both marked where in the house and I had been and where I was headed.

That year’s High Holiday services marked a change. After years of masterful shofar blowing by one of The Watering Hole’s own fathers, our new Rabbi coordinated a shofar choir of both young and old to really bring the house down. I loved blowing the shofar on the High Holidays. It was the main event, and I was a co-star. I did so until I was 13, when being up on the bima to blow shofar instantly became “uncool.” I did pick it up again in college. My senior year, I even blew the shofar in both the Reform and Conservative service: my first double-header.

All this shofar blowing history is important, but the key to the story is that I was an awful shofar blower, and it didn’t matter. Those in attendance revered me because I had taken on the sheer power of the shofar.

The trumpet is a different story. I always loved jazz music, but didn’t know much about it until I took History of Jazz my first semester at UNC. This class, ultimately my favorite in college, opened my eyes to an incredibly rich history of ground-breaking musicians and performances. The best and most challenging part of this class was recognizing solos from famous jazz pieces both by instrument and musician with no melodic context. I would listen to these provided solos over and over on my headphones in my dorm until I knew every note. These solos would take me to another place, make me forget about all the other stresses of being a first-year college student. I would hide my procrastination by studying jazz.

My love of jazz has not wavered in the five years since I took that class. Living four blocks from the center of the DC jazz district doesn’t hurt. The most tangible tool I learned in that class and use today is the ability to assess skill on the trumpet, among other jazz instruments. Within moments, I can tell if a musician is going to wow or bore me with strong accuracy. God giving the people silver trumpets was a stop-gap used to ease the constant complaining of the people of Israel, but could easily become a punishment, depending on the trumpeter. But try blowing a shofar on a busy urban street - it's guaranteed to be a show-stopper.