Lessons learned from baseball ring true during High Holy Days

Haazinu/Shabbat Shuva

Haftarah: Shuvah Yisrael

Hosea 14:2

When the World Series and the High Holy Days overlap, some Jews manage to keep abreast of the sport even while praying. Although the two seem mutually exclusive, this popular sport can teach Jews about repentance, the central theme for Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath that falls between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

This sacred season focuses on three kinds of tshuvah, or repentance: bayn adam lemakom, between an individual and God; bayn adam lechavero; between two people; and bayn adam leatzmo, within oneself. The latter, the most difficult to accomplish, is illustrated by two contrasting baseball episodes.

In the sixth game of the 1986 World Series, the New York Mets were losing by two runs in the bottom of the 10th inning. A Boston Red Sox victory would be its first since 1918. Mets player Mookie Wilson hit a grounder toward first base. The ball went through Bill Buckner's legs, and the Mets won the game. After the Sox squandered a three-run lead in Game 7, the team lost the series to the Mets and Buckner went down in history as the poster child of "the choke." Buckner had to live his remaining years in pro ball with hecklers shouting, "Through your legs!" both at home and away.

Nevertheless, Buckner continued to play ball and then coach for another 10 years, commenting, "All I have to do is live with myself. I have to like myself. If I can do that, whatever they do or say, I can laugh it off.... I can honestly say that it doesn't bother me anymore."

An earlier game that same season, the American League playoff between the Red Sox and the Angels, had a more sobering ending. If the Angels had won the fifth game, they would have won the series. In the ninth inning, 13-year veteran pitcher Donnie Moore needed only one more strike, but instead, he gave up a two-run homer to Dave Henderson. That mistake put the Red Sox ahead 6-5, resulting in a Sox victory in the 11th inning — one of the greatest comebacks in Red Sox history. Thus, the Sox won the pennant and an opportunity to face the Mets in the aforementioned World Series.

But from that moment, Moore's life went into a tailspin. He could not live with the constant heckling from the crowds. Unable to pull himself up from his downward spiral, he pulled out a pistol in the kitchen of his suburban home and in front of his children, shot his wife three times and then killed himself.

The Midrash teaches that costly errors can enable Jews to facilitate personal tshuvah as illustrated by a fictional behind-the-scenes look at God's creation of the world. In this example, God successively created and then destroyed several worlds before creating this one, a notion suggested by God's comment after the flood: "Never again will I doom the world because of man...nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done." (Genesis 8:21) The text portrayed God as one capable of making mistakes, an important lesson during this penitential season.

The Torah provides another poignant story that focuses on the importance of tshuvah. In it, Jacob — racked with guilt because he had cheated and deceived his brother and father — went to meet Esau. In a touching moment of tshuvah, the estranged brothers embraced and, with tears running down their cheeks, Jacob whispered a tender comment in Esau's ear: "... raheetee pahnecha keeroht p'nay Elohim — to see your face is like seeing the face of God." (Genesis 33:10) Jacob saw in Esau's eyes the God who can make mistakes but who also grants forgiveness and helps those who falter and fail, a realization articulated by Ba'al Shem Tov's comment: "Each penitent thought is a voice of God."

It is difficult to forgive others and God, but it is especially difficult to forgive one's self. Nevertheless, we need not live unrepentant lives absent of tshuvah because our God is a God who wants us to have peace within our souls, as the psalmist (19:13) expresses: Clear me from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!

Stephen Pearce is senior rabbi at the Reform Congregation Emanu-El

in San Francisco..