Free Speech vs. Respecting the National Anthem

The following is the sermon I delivered on Yom Kippur:

A story: In a synagogue somewhere (it doesn’t matter where), the rabbi instructs the congregation, “Please rise for the Torah processional as the ark is opened and the Torah is taken out.” The rabbi notices one of the synagogue regulars has remained in his seat. He thinks this is odd and makes a mental note to ask Mark during the kiddush following services why he didn’t stand. After the Torah reading the rabbi again directs the congregation to stand and, once again, there’s Mark sitting in his seat.

At Kiddush, the rabbi approaches Mark and greets him with a “Shabbat Shalom.” The rabbi asks Mark if everything is OK and he says it is. The rabbi says that he noticed he did not stand when the Torah came out of the Ark or when it was put back during the recessional. The rabbi peppered him with more questions. “Is there a handicap that prevented you from standing? Do you have a bad back? Do you now get dizzy if you stand?”

Mark then looked at the rabbi and explained, “Because I’m a gay man. I cannot agree with what the Torah says about me or my friends in the gay community. I’m silently protesting the verse in Leviticus that deals with homosexuals. You want me to stand out of respect for a document that, in essence, calls me morally reprehensible – an abomination.

Well, the rabbi thought, on the one hand, it is our synagogue custom that everyone who is physically able to, stands when the Torah is carried around the congregation. But, on the other hand, we subscribe to the democratic ideals of free speech in our country. So, Mark is violating our synagogue policy, our minhag hamakom (our community’s custom), but I also respect him for taking a stand.

Now, I must tell you that I made up this story. But it does serve as an appropriate analogy for the ongoing debate about NFL football players “taking a knee” and refusing to stand during the National Anthem before football games as a form of a protest. I’m not going to get into the reasons WHY these professional football players are choosing to protest… some say it’s because of police brutality, others because of our President’s choice words in condemnation of their protest, and others because of the lyrics in our nation’s anthem. What I do want to discuss today is how we ascribe holiness and meaning to objects, and what happens when our embrace of freedom of speech gets in the way of how we feel about these objects of meaning.

First, take a moment to think about how you would respond to my made-up character of Mark. If you were the rabbi – or a fellow congregant in Mark’s congregation, what would be your response to his decision to not stand for the Torah processional and recessional because he’s at odds over what the Torah says? It’s a plausible act of conscientious objection. What if a group of women in the congregation refused to stand because they didn’t agree with the Torah’s views of women? What if all the non-Kohanim in a congregation objected to the privileges ascribed to the Kohens and refused to stand when the Torah was paraded? That would be a lot of people sitting down in protest!

From just one congregant refusing to stand, it could catch on and then there’d be large-scale protests in congregations around the country – maybe the world. Would we commend the protesters for holding their ground, or would be feel they were disrespecting our Holy Torah?

Remember, ultimately, it was humans who ascribed such holiness to the Torah. And it was humans who ascribed meaning to a poem by Francis Scott Key. Is it not each individual’s right to determine if they should stand or sit for the Torah? For the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner? What if someone chooses to sit for the singing of Israel’s national anthem – Hatikvah? Are they wrong? Are they inconsiderate? Or, are they merely expressing their beliefs and making a statement?

It’s a challenging situation and it’s certainly more complicated than simply saying everyone who is of able body MUST stand for the National Anthem. Looks look at how this controversy began in the NFL.

On August 14, 2016, quarterback Colin Kaepernick chooses to sit for the National Anthem and no one noticed. Mostly because the TV cameras never used to broadcast during the National Anthem unless it was a big playoff game or the Super Bowl. A week later, again Kaepernick sits during the anthem, and again, no one noticed. The following week, he sits and this time he is met with a level of vitriol unseen against an athlete. Even the future President of the United States took shots at him while on the campaign trail. Kaepernick went on to explain his protest had NOTHING to with the military, but he felt it was difficult to stand for a flag that didn't treat people of color fairly.

Then on August 30, 2016, Nate Boyer, a former Army Green Beret turned NFL long snapper, penned an open letter to Colin Kaepernick in the Army Times. In it he expressed how Kaepernick's sitting affected him. Then a strange thing happened. Kaepernick was able to do what most Americans to date have not... He listened.

Restoring Faith in Sports: The Michigan Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

Like most of my friends, growing up I was a dedicated sports fan. Baseball was my favorite sport to watch, collecting baseball cards was a hobby that occupied much of my time, and memorizing player stats took precedence over any subject in school. All that changed the summer between high school graduation and my freshman year at college. The Major League Baseball player strike in 1994 was a watershed moment for me. It gave me a glimpse into the strong focus on money in professional sports. My favorite players went from being heroes to goats, who only cared about another million dollars or a signing bonus and getting their TV revenue share. I tuned out.

It took a few years until I returned to loving professional sports. I came to understand that the players were only fighting for what was rightfully theirs and the greed was part of the culture, mostly perpetuated by the franchise owners and sports agents. Over the years, as my own children have become avid sports fans there is nothing I enjoy more than heading to the ballpark, arena or stadium with them in tow to enjoy another exciting sports event. I now smile widely while watching a game on TV as I listen to my kids talk player stats just as I did with my friends a generation ago.

Nevertheless, I've been very critical of professional sports lately. From football's rampant concussion problem and off-season arrests to players using performance enhancement drugs and being abusive to the women in their lives, there are a lot of reasons to rule pro sports as inappropriate for today's youth. There have been stories of pro athletes making ungodly amounts of money during their playing careers only to file for bankruptcy a few years later. These millionaire sports stars charge their adoring young fans for each autograph and then quickly skip town when another team offers them more money. Fighting between players is no longer unique to hockey games as fights have increased in the NBA and NFL, in addition to more bench-clearing brawls in pro baseball. In my more pessimistic moments, I wonder if there are any role models for our kids in pro sports anymore.

The other night I put aside this pessimism as my eyes opened to some truly amazing stories of humanity in sports. If you want to see what is still great about athletes, just attend a local Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Every state has its own Sports Hall of Fame into which it inducts the top athletes with connections to that state. On Thursday night I had the privilege of watching some truly wonderful sports stars become members of the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. The focus was less on their career statistics or accolades as players or coaches and more on how they have given back to society and are leaders with ethics and integrity.

There was no doubt that these men and women will go down in history for their accomplishments on the field, but for those couple of hours as I listened to their philanthropic contributions off the field I felt very confident about the future of sports. In this year's extraordinary class, the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame inducted NY Yankees all-star and Kalamazoo, Michigan native Derek Jeter (he was unable to attend at the last minute and will be formally inducted next year), Cincinnati Reds Hall of Famer and University of Michigan standout Barry Larkin, Michigan State University's beloved basketball coach Tom Izzo, Detroit Red Wings great Sergei Federov, Detroit Lions All Pro defensive tackle Doug English, pro-bowler Aleta Sill and four-time Olympian swimmer Sheila Taormina.

Michigan Sports HOF Inductees: Tom Izzo,Barry Larkin, Sheila Taormina, Aleta Sill, Sergei Federov & Doug English 

These former players, along with Coach Izzo, spoke about the philanthropic foundations they have set up to support the causes that are near and dear to them. (While Jeter wasn't able to be there in person, his own foundation has famously raised close to $20 million to help guide students toward leadership roles and educational opportunities.) These men and women spoke of the sacrifices they made throughout their careers -- often at their family's expense -- and how they always tried to put their fans first. They spoke about how they are fans themselves and never lost sight of how fortunate they were to have the opportunity to play a sport they love for so many years and be compensated well for it.

The NFL and Its Ethics Problem

The commissioners of the major professional sports leagues have been in the news quite a bit lately. Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner who replaced David Stern a year ago, has received high marks for his first year in office. The biggest items he's currently dealing with are the idea to add four new basketball franchises in Europe and whether to expand the NBA All-Star rosters. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who is routinely booed at the NHL All-Star Game and when presenting the Stanley Cup, has actually done a great job of diminishing the role of fighting in the league and has significantly grown the NHL's annual revenue from increased ticket sales, TV contracts and apparel sales. Rob Manfred, the new commissioner of Major League Baseball who replaced Bud Selig, just started his new post and his biggest controversy to date is whether to ban infield defensive shifts.

That brings us to Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner. It seems that when Goodell isn't dealing with the off-season arrests of his pro football players for everything from drugs and rape to weapons and drunk driving, he's embattled in cheating scandals and lawsuits of former players who barely remember their playing days due to their many concussions.

The NFL's ethics problem isn't new. Eleven years ago, back in February 2004 after Janet Jackson revealed too much during the Super Bowl halftime show, I wrote on this blog that, "So many people are citing this year's Super Bowl as proof of a complete absence of dignity and moral behavior in our society." I then quoted New Jersey Jewish News Editor Andrew Silow-Carroll's argument about the Super Bowl. He wrote, "I hate to sound like a prude, but this year’s Super Bowl was an assault of tasteless, inappropriate, and uncomfortable images — and we missed the half-time show! Like most viewers, I used to look forward to the Super Bowl commercials. But that was before advertisers seemed to decide that the country’s most powerful economic cohort lives in frat houses."

The Jewish Sports Journalist

I finally got around to seeing the play "Ernie" last week. The play focuses on the life of the late Detroit Tigers radio broadcaster Ernie Harwell, who in Detroit is just as legendary a figure as the greats who actually played the game like Greenberg and Kaline. The play was as good as the reviews, but as I exited the theater my mind focused less on the life of Ernie Harwell and more on the life of the writer of the play, Mitch Albom.

It has often been said that a Jewish boy has a better chance of owning a professional sports team than playing on one. And with the dearth of Jewish pro athletes and the disproportionate amount of Jewish owned teams, that might be true. But, lately I've been thinking about all the Jewish guys who at some point in their lives determined that they'd rather write and talk about their favorite sports than play them.

I first started reading Mitch Albom's sports columns when he arrived in Detroit in 1985 to write for the Detroit Free Press. As a young boy I found his columns masterful. Albom didn't just cover my beloved local Detroit sports teams and their athletes; his prose told the hidden stories of the athletes and what made watching these games such a magical experience.

MSU Hillel: If You Build It

Like many rabbis I’m often asked why I chose to become a rabbi. People are interested to know if there was a pivotal moment in my upbringing that steered me to the rabbinate. In responding to that question I’ve always cited my years as a student leader at Michigan State University Hillel.

A few weekends ago I spent a memorable weekend in East Lansing my eldest child and attended Shabbat festivities at MSU Hillel. It was the first Shabbat I experienced on the MSU campus since my graduation from the university almost fifteen years ago. It proved to be a nostalgic weekend for me and one in which I truly gave thanks for the many gifts that MSU Hillel provided for me.

My son in front of the MSU Hillel building earlier this month.

Rabbi Autographs on Sports Balls

While I was in rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, I decided that I wanted a keepsake to remember the esteemed faculty. If it were high school, I suppose I could have asked my teachers to sign my yearbook. Since there were no year books around, I searched the house for something else to get autographed. A brand-new football caught my eye and with a white marker I began making my way around the Seminary in search of faculty members to put their John Hancock on my football. They were trilled to comply.

Prominent JTS faculty members like Chancellor Ismar Schorsch, Neil Gillman, Bill Lebeau, Burt Visotzky, Anne Lerner, Michael Greenbaum, Barry Holtz,  Aryeh Davidson, Stephen Geller, Robbie Harris, Raymond Scheindlin, Joe Lukinsky (of blessed memory), and Eduardo Rauch (of blessed memory). I placed the autographed football in a glass display case. When Purim rolled around I put it on display at the annual Purim Seudah with a note challenging, "Guess which professional team autographed this football."

Little did I know that I didn't have an original idea there. It turns out that a guy named Daniel Harris has been collecting autographs from famous rabbis for many decades. A recent article in Tablet, introduces us to Harris, who is the associate principal of Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago. Harris explains that over time he outgrew his childhood role models and "realized he had exchanged players of physical brilliance for legends of spiritual grandeur—and that those were the heroes he wanted to recognize." He goes so far as to claim that he'd take a baseball signed by a great rabbinic leader over one autographed by the great Babe Ruth.

Harris's collection of rabbinicly autographed baseballs has grown recently and now includes ten baseballs from the leading Orthodox rabbis of our time including Rav Gedaliah Schwartz and Rabbi Berel Wein. Harris traded his signed Kenny Holtzman baseball to Rabbi Wein for his signature.

Autographed baseballs by prominent rabbis from Daniel Harris's collection

Harris explained why he uses baseballs to collect these esteemed rabbis' autographs. "Both baseball and, in a greater sense, Talmud, are full of nuance and great detail. Every time you enjoy learning a piece of Talmud you can come away with something new, as in baseball, where there is always some new play or game situation that you have never seen."

I'm not looking to begin a collection of autographed baseballs from respected Seminary luminaries and well-known Conservative rabbis any time soon. However, I might just begin to collect personalized autographed baseballs from rock stars. Here's my first in the collection from Vincent Damon Furnier, better known as Alice Cooper:

Alice Cooper autographed baseball

A Very Jewish Super Bowl

This year's Super Bowl Sunday will place two major Jewish philanthropists against each other. The New York Giants are co-owned by the Tisch family and the New England Patriots are owned by the Kraft family.

Joint Media News Service's Jacob Kamaras provided the "who's who" for both families and which Jewish organizations they all lead. In the Giants' owners' box you have "film and television producer Steve Tisch, son of Bob, as the team’s chairman and executive vice president. Bob’s brother, Larry, was the father of Jim — former president of the UJA Federation of New York and former board chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Jim’s wife, Merryl, chairs the board of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty."

On the other side of the field you have the Tisch family with "owner Robert Kraft’s wife Myra—who passed away last July—served as chair of the Boston-based Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ (CJP) board of directors and was twice co-chair of CJP’s annual fundraising campaign."

Both families are responsible for donating mega amounts of charitable gifts to major Jewish organizations, both here and in Israel. So, which Jewish owner's team will come out victorious on Sunday night? For that we have to go to Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, who each year uses his Torah erudition to select the Super Bowl winner.

This year, the Connecticut-based Rabbi Hammerman decides to not make a Super Bowl prediction because "this year's matchup hits too close to home - and, more to the point, my prediction before Super Bowl 42 (of a Pats win) did not work out too well. So, because I prefer not to jinx my team, no prediction this year." He does use the Torah narrative to provide some background on the game:

Just before Super Bowl 42, you recall, the Patriots were busted for spying. In my prediction before that Super Bowl, which I am not repeating here, I noted that in the book of Numbers when the Israelite spies confronted "giants" as the scouted out the land, they reported back that they felt "like grasshoppers." I noted that anyone who has ever been to Boston knows that high above that home of the original Patriots, Faneuil Hall, there sits a weathervane in the shape of, you guessed it, a grasshopper!

I also noted (in that prediction, which I'm not repeating here) that the Patriots wandered for just over 40 years before winning the first championship in 2002. So they had already served their time for the sin of the spies, which, as you recall from Numbers, was 40 years. For 40 years, the Patriotic spies were never able to stand up to the Giants...or the Raiders or Steelers or Dolphins, for that matter. But no more. First they sacrificed the Rams in Super Bowl 36, then they pillaged the Panthers and flew on wings of Eagles. Now, coached by a former Giant, they have become giants - in their own eyes, and the eyes of the other teams in the league. 

I then noted (but am not repeating here) that Giants are called both Nefilim and Anakim in the Torah. The Nefilim were mythic humanoids that filled the earth before the flood, much like the Titans of Greek mythology (a Giant-Titan Super Bowl would have been a doozy), while the Anakim were the ones who petrified the Israelite spies. There is one other giant of note in the Bible: Goliath. But it isn't just Goliath who bit the dust, folks. When Rashi tried to explain the term Nifilim, he related it to the Hebrew word "nafal," "to fall." As Rashi (he was so good at predicting games that they called him "Rashi the Greek") understood it, the Giants fell.

Based on Rashi, I concluded then that the Giants would fall. What I didn't account for was the heroism of an unexpected David, whose last name is Tyree, who also happened to be a Giant. That was then, this is now. I can't repeat my prior prediction, lest I tempt fate and repeat the result.

Many people enjoy Super Bowl Sunday, but not for the actual football match up. It is after all the second biggest eating day of year after Thanksgiving. So many people look forward to the food. I found this very non-kosher, but very cool looking Super Bowl food creation. It could very easily be adapted to a kosher creation by using only kosher deli meats and getting rid of the cheese and cheese snacks. And while we're at it, how about substituting some rye bread and onion rolls for that white bread? I know one former NFL player who would enjoy this treif tray. Former New England Patriots punter Josh Miller, who is Jewish, played for the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX and was recently quoted as saying that he was craving a ham sandwich with less than a minute to play in that game, which the Patriots won 24-21 over the Philadelphia Eagles.

Finally, I feel inclined to give some credit to Yeshiva University for offering a learning opportunity during halftime of the Super Bowl. The YU Torah Halftime Show incorporates Torah into the Super Bowl experience. It is a series of three 8 minute presentations on “Torah and Sports” topics, featuring leading faculty members Rabbi Ely Allen, Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff and Dr. Yitzchak Schechter. The Torah learning show will be available for viewing on YU's dedicated website on Sunday. Here's the promo video for the YU Torah Halftime Show:

Jews for Tebow

The Tim Tebow craze is now hotter than ever as the Denver Broncos' quarterback is shepherding (sorry!) his team into the playoffs. In November I wrote about about how Tim Tebow and his kneeling in public prayer ("Tebowing") was heating up the discussion of prayer in sports. I had no idea that the Tebowing craze would continue to be such a hot topic this late into the NFL season. Whether God is on his side or he's just a phenomenal athlete in crunch situations, Tebow has certainly become the topic on everyone's mind.

The most popular article written about the Jewish perspective on Tim Tebow was by my colleague Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Connecticut. When I first read his article on The Jewish Week's website, I had to continuously go back and re-read each sentence because I couldn't believe what Hammerman was arguing. Apparently, neither did most people including Gary Rosenblatt, the editor of The Jewish Week who had the article taken down from the website (but not before it was published in the print edition).

Out of respect for Hammerman I decided not to comment on his article at the time. He was receiving a heavy amount of criticism from Tebow fans who took exception with his overly harsh critique of the quarterback. Hammerman's article read more like a satirical piece that was printed a few months before Purim, the Jewish holiday on which such satire is commonplace. Hammerman wrote, "If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants." After The Jewish Week took down the article, Hammerman issued an apology to Tim Tebow, his fans and his family. The Jewish Week also issued an apology explaining that the article "violated our own standards calling for civility in posting comments on our website."

Rabbi Hammerman ate some crow and issued the following statement:

I have spent my entire career engaged in dialogue with people of all faiths while speaking out passionately against intolerance and extremism. I have the deepest respect for those who are committed to their faith, including Mr. Tebow. I realize the way in which I attempted to make my points was clumsy and inappropriate, calling to mind the kind of intolerance and extremism my article was intended to disparage. I sincerely apologize to Mr. Tebow, his family, the Broncos and Patriots and all those whom I may have offended.

The tide, however, seems to have shifted. Jews went from either not knowing what to make of Tim Tebow and his public displays of his Evangelical Christian faith to criticizing his fanaticism as Rabbi Hammerman regretfully wrote. Now, groups called "Jews for Tebow" are sprouting up everywhere. A "Jews for Tebow" Facebook page has close to 500 Likes. Jewish fans are showing up to Tebow's games wearing "Jews for Tebow" shirts and rabbis are speaking positively about Tebow from the pulpit.

The "Jews for Tebow" Facebook page was created by a self-described non-observant Israeli named Ike Thaler, who is not from Denver (he lives in South Florida). What prompted him to create the Tebow Facebook group on behalf of Jewish fans? He explains, "I have been a Tebow fan since his first year in College, but I decided to look for a forum to express my support for Tim Tebow as well as find a way to provide a different Tim Tebow fan page which includes more humor and the lighter side of the subject. I wanted to create a fan page like no other Tim Tebow fan page. Our page is 'not your parent's Tim Tebow fan page'."

Thaler's own faith has strengthened since becoming a Tebow fan. He claims that his loyalty and admiration have grown tenfold since seeing Tebow getting battered for expressing his religious beliefs. "I obviously disagree with his religious views, but I admire him for being so positive and sticking to his morals by expressing his priorities in serving God over the temptations that fame and the superstar status bring into his life. What a positive role model."

Thaler tells me that he is currently working on releasing a unique video related to Tim Tebow that is going to be a video like no other one on the Web. It is going to mix humor and football clips with a unique Jewish twist. "It is sure to get bring out Jewish emotions," he claims.

I'm noticing more Jewish people talking about Tebow and I get a lot of questions about my opinion on Tebowing. I think it's great that he has strong beliefs and isn't embarrassed to express those beliefs in public through his comments or his actions. Tebow is not forcing anyone else to believe what he does, but he is proud of his core beliefs.

Michigan Wins Sugar Bowl, Receives Kiddush Cup

It's been a great beginning of 2012 for Michigan sports teams. The Michigan State Spartans won the Outback Bowl in a nail biting 3rd overtime victory, the Michigan Wolverines won last night's Allstate Sugar Bowl in overtime, and Michigan State beat Wisconsin last night in an exciting down-to-the-buzzer game of college hoops. The Red Wings are neck and neck with the Chicago Blackhawks for first place, the Detroit Pistons are on a two-game winning streak, and the Detroit Lions are in the post-season for the first time since 1999.

There was even an apparent Jewish connection at the end of last night's Sugar Bowl when Michigan coach Brady Hoke hoisted the Sugar Bowl trophy, which can best be described as a Silver Kiddush Cup Award.

Twitter: @RabbiJason

Candlestick Park Lacks Light Before Hanukkah

Irony. On the night before Hanukkah, tonight's Monday Night Football game was delayed because there was no light in Candlestick Park in San Francisco. As if it's not funny enough that a stadium named Candlestick had no electricity, it brings to mind the story of Hanukkah.

Perhaps if they could just find enough electricity at Candlestick Park for one quarter of the football game, it would miraculously last for all four quarters?

Here is the article I wrote for Patch.com about the "Five Things You Should Know About Hanukkah":

While Christmas is among the top two Christian holidays in terms of importance, Hanukkah is considered a minor holiday for the Jewish people. Nevertheless, it has become one of the more widely celebrated Jewish holidays and it is certainly a favorite among children. 

Hanukkah commemorates the victory of the Jews over the Syrian Greeks in 164 BCE (Before Common Era) and is celebrated by lighting one additional candle in a candelabrum, called a hanukkiah (or menorah) for eight days. The holiday is also known as the Festival of Lights. Hanukkah means rededication and refers to the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its defilement by the Syrian Greeks in 164 BCE (or BC). 

History
Beginning in 167 BCE, the Jews of Judea rose up in revolt against the oppression of King Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid Empire. Judah the Maccabee was the leader of the Jewish army. Judah and his followers were able to capture the Temple in Jerusalem, which had been turned into a pagan shrine. They cleansed it and rededicated it to God. Following the rededication, they observed an eight-day celebration, which was patterned after the autumn harvest festival of Sukkot. The Jewish people were not able to properly celebrate Sukkot during the siege and thus observed it in the winter, which later became Hanukkah. 

The Miracle of Oil Story
A much later story written by the rabbis of the Talmudic period claims that the eight day festival of Hanukkah was to celebrate the miracle that a small amount of oil that was only enough to keep the menorah burning for one day actually lasted for a full eight days. 

Home Rituals
For the most part, Hanukkah is a home-based holiday with many rituals that take place in the home rather than the synagogue. Central to the holiday is the lighting of the hanukkiah, an eight-branched candelabrum. Each night of the holiday (beginning this year on the evening of Dec. 20) an additional candle is added to the menorah. It is also customary for children to play a dreidel (spinning top) game during Hanukkah. 

Food
To celebrate the legend of the miraculous cruse of oil that kept the menorah lit for eight days, it is customary to eat foods fried in oil. The most familiar Hanukkah foods are latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly donuts). Small pieces of chocolate in the shape of small coins are also traditional treats during the holiday. 

Gifts
Likely as a response to the gift-giving custom of Christmas, Hanukkah has evolved into gift-giving holiday as well. Some families exchange gifts during each night of the holiday, while other families may only give one gift over the course of Hanukkah. It is customary to send Hanukkah greetings cards to friends and family.

Prayer in Sports - Part 2

Last week I blogged about the role of public prayer in sports. What prompted me to blog about the subject was a Detroit Free Press article in which I was quoted that dealt with the trend of major league baseball players praying and performing various religious-related activities on the sports field like drawing crosses in the dirt and blowing kisses to heaven after a home run.

Professional and collegiate players giving thanks to God in the locker room after a game is nothing new and neither is a player crossing himself after a touchdown. Lately however, this has gone to a new level and that is probably thanks in large measure to Tim Tebow, the NFL player who started the "Tebowing" craze. The Denver Broncos quarterback, who stencils biblical verses into his eye black, drops to one knee in silent devotion in the middle of his games. This act of public prayer has led to people everywhere to start "Tebowing."

As a rabbi, I don't have a problem with the Tebowing craze but I think it's funny that it has restarted the debate over public prayer. If a player simply closes his eyes and gives thanks to God no one will notice, but as soon as he drops to one knee it becomes a national obsession.

Today's college game between Penn State and Nebraska will only add fuel to this debate. Before the game in Beaver Stadium, the crowd watched as both teams joined together in the middle of the field for group prayer. This prayer service was preceded by a moment of silence for the entire stadium asking for healing for those affected by child molestation. The Penn State campus was already emotionally charged following the forced resignation of its long time coach Joe Paterno for not doing more to stop the child molestation that took place at a youth football camp held on campus several years earlier. No doubt, people will be weighing in on whether it was appropriate for both teams to join in public prayer before the game. After all, this is something that is usually done in the privacy of the locker room.

For those who criticize Tim Tebow for praying on the football field for such trivial things as a touchdown pass, perhaps the Penn State-Nebraska prayer service will raise the question of whether its appropriate to pray for serious things on the football field (victims of child molestation, our troops oversees, those battling cancer, etc.). Most likely, athletes are going to continue to publicly pray on the sports field and demonstrate their religious beliefs. And the debate over whether its appropriate or not will continue as well.

I've Read Anne Frank's Diary. And Tiki Barber, You're No Anne Frank!

In February I toured the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam for the first time. It was a chilling experience. Since 7th grade, I've read several versions of Anne Frank's diary. I've seen several versions of movies about Anne Frank. And I toured the Anne Frank exhibit at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

I am no scholar on Anne Frank, but I do know one thing. A professional football player who hides out in his agent's home so the pesky media can't interview him is no Anne Frank.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, former NFL player Tiki Barber described how he had to go into hiding as media scrutiny grew on him in April 2010 following his separation with his wife. Even though Barber joined his agent, Mark Lepselter, in the attic of his agent's house, it's still not even close to appropriate to make such a comparison.

Apparently, Barber felt that his agent was playing the role of the kind Dutch people who helped Anne Frank and family hide from the Nazis in early 1940s Amsterdam. Barber explained to Sports Illustrated that "Lep's Jewish and it was like a reverse Anne Frank thing."

I'm quite certain that the Sports Illustrated columnist knew that Barber's comparison would raise eyebrows. And somehow, Agent Lepselter has been defending his client's ridiculous analogy.

Lepselter told ESPN, "In a world where nothing surprises me, where things get completely blown out of proportion, this only adds to the list. All Tiki was saying to (SI) was he was shedding light on going back to that time when he was literally trapped, so to speak, in my attic for a week. Nothing more, nothing less... Let me remind all those who want to make this more than it is: Tiki was a guest of (president) Shimon Peres in Israel five years ago."

I'm curious to see if Tiki Barber will continue as an NFL commentator in the future of if this PR nightmare will mark the end of this TV career. If Barber decides to write about his poor choice of words in a diary, I certainly hope he will have learned his lesson and not compare himself to another famous diary writer.

A Jewish Calendar Primer for Gabe Carimi

The Chicago Bears top draft pick is Gabe Carimi, a 22-year-old from the University of Wisconsin. The 6-7, 314-pound All-American is nicknamed "The Jewish Hammer."

I've written on this blog several times about Jewish Major League Baseball players and the conflict of playing on Yom Kippur, but I've never discussed how the Yom Kippur decision affects NFL football players. This is likely because when there's a Yom Kippur conflict in pro baseball it is often an important post-season game, yet, in college and pro football it's only the beginning of the season.

Gabe Carimi, however, has brought the Yom Kippur holiday conflict to the NFL when he responded to a question about whether he'd play on Yom Kippur in a Chicago Bears game.  A self-proclaimed Reform Jew, Carimi fasted until an hour before the Big Ten opener in his freshman season for the University of Wisonsin when the game fell on Yom Kippur. When Yom Kippur again fell on a game day last season, Carimi fasted for 24 hours, but not according to the time zone he was currently in. Rather, he fasted according to the Israeli sundown so he could eat and take intravenous fluids right before game time.

Gabe Carimi was quoted as saying, "It's pretty big in my life. I'm religious, but I try to tweak it so I can still do my job."

At the NFL Combine this year, when asked whether he would play on Yom Kippur, Carimi told NFL scouts, "I already looked out over the next 15 years, and Yom Kippur doesn't fall on a Sunday."

So, here's some information on the Jewish calendar for Gabe Carimi. First off, the Jewish calendar was fixed in 358/359 CE by Hillel II so that Yom Kippur will never fall on a Sunday. I'm pretty certain this wasn't done with the NFL schedule in mind, but rather because if Yom Kippur fell on a Sunday, it would not be possible to make the necessary preparations for Yom Kippur, including candle lighting, because the preceding day is the Jewish Sabbath.

So, Gabe Carimi doesn't have to worry about any NFL games that are scheduled for Sunday conflicting with Yom Kippur. Ever. And had he kept looking beyond the next 15 years, he would find that there are no Sundays on which Yom Kippur falls.

What Carimi neglected to look for are Yom Kippur conflicts on other days of the week since there are the occasional NFL games on Monday nights, Thursday nights, and Saturdays when Yom Kippur can occur.

Kosher Restaurant in NYC Gets Shot Down by New York Jets

The Vos Iz Neias blog reports that a New York Jets team official discovered that Prime KO Japanese Steakhouse, a popular kosher restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan was serving menu items with a New York Jets theme. She ordered them to pull the “Green on Green Jets Salad” and “Jets Dragon Roll” off the menu.

Jets spokeswoman Jessica Ciccone called the Kosher Japanese Steakhouse a few weeks ago to complain that the restaurant's items were not authorized by the team.

The dishes were created by Jets fan and restaurant chef Makoto Kameyama, who grew up in Tokyo playing football on his high-school team, the Mean Elephants (no word about any mean elephant entrées on the menu). On Sundays, Kameyama would watch NFL games on a big screen at the Sony Building in Ginza. The Jets' decision to kill the salad and sushi roll might have brought some bad karma to the team -- they lost to the Patriots 45-3 this past Sunday!

Is Football for Jewish Kids?

I often joke that the point of a bar mitzvah is to celebrate the Jewish boy's realization that he'll have a much better chance of owning the professional team than playing on it. It's tongue-in-cheek humor, but the fact remains that there are many more Jewish professional sports team owners than Jewish players.

In Detroit, it might be more accurate to say that Jewish boys who want to play pro sports grow up to be sports reporters on the evening news. Growing up in Detroit, the sports directors of all three major local networks were Jewish men. Eli Zaret on CBS-2, Bernie Smilovitz on NBC-4 and Don Shane on ABC-7.

Eli Zaret is now a reporter for the Detroit Pistons. Bernie left Detroit for New York in the mid-90s only to return two years later. And Don Shane came to Channel 7 in 1989 and never left. I was thinking about the stereotype that Jewish boys don't play football last night as I watched the late-night news broadcast on Detroit's ABC affiliate as they replayed Don getting tackled on the sidelines by University of Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier in yesterday's U-M win.

I got to know Don pretty well in the early 90's when I was a babysitter for his two children. Don lives across the street from my uncle and aunt, and in high school I would play basketball with the guys in that neighborhood at my Uncle's house, including Don, on Saturday afternoons. Later that night, I would babysit for my cousins or Don's kids. I loved talking sports with Don because he not only knew everything there was to know about local Detroit sports, he was often the first to know.

In all fairness to Don, the hard hit he took on the sidelines yesterday as he prepared his post-game report had nothing to do with whether Jewish boys play football or not. He was standing innocently on the sidelines when Forcier was forced out of bounds and was pushed directly into him.  He suffered a split lip that required four stitches and a pretty nasty headache (reports confirmed it wasn't a concussion). Impressively, Don managed to conduct his post-game interviews and even shared some laughs with Forcier.

So, even for those Jewish boys who make the conscious decision to become a sportscaster instead of a football player, remember that sometimes reporting from the sidelines can be a full-contact sport too.

And while I never played high school football (although as a 6-foot-3, 220 pound guy I was desperately recruited each year by the coach), I am impressed by this all-Jewish San Diego high school football team making headlines. The JTA article about this Jewish day school's football team includes this great question: "Was the stereotype of the Jewish mom or dad, too fearful of their child getting hurt to let them go out for football, turning end over end on its way out of bounds?"

Maybe a few of these Jewish kids will forgo a career as the team owner or sports broadcaster and actually wear a uniform for a pro team some day.