S ometimes one reads something that primarily inspires pity for the author. That was my reaction to a piece in Tablet by Marco Greenberg entitled “Forget Koufax: My Son Will Play Football This Yom Kippur and I’m Fine with That.”
Greenberg’s son Noam attends a Connecticut prep school “that takes sports seriously.” When Noam informs his father that he made the football team the latter beams with pride. But that pride quickly turns to something else when Noam shares that he will be playing on Yom Kippur. Marco spends a sleepless night wondering whether he failed as a parent and fretting about what his friends in synagogue will say if they find out how Noam spent the holiest day of the Jewish year.
Above all he thinks about how the great Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax thrilled American Jews with his refusal to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. (Koufax’s replacement fellow Hall of Famer Don Drysdale was hit hard and when manager Walt Alston came to the mound to remove him Drysdale remarked dryly “I bet you wish I were Jewish too.”)
But by the morning Marco Greenberg has made peace with his son’s “choosing to eat a hearty breakfast and gear up for the game on Yom Kippur.” His son’s decision not to pray he declares reflects the greater security of Jews in America today than in 1965. Today Jews are everywhere and don’t have to worry any longer about how they will be perceived by Jews or gentiles or whether putting football above rituals makes them any less Jewish.
