When Baseball and Hebrew School Collide

December 26, 2009



This post has absolutely nothing to do with baseball but like many of my past blogs, its origins can be traced to a day at the baseball field. I was stuck in a never-ending line waiting to register my son for spring baseball. This is the same Little League that last year introduced themselves to me with the warm and friendly line, "Welcome to the cult." Truth be told, we had a wonderful experience last season with kind, caring and "let's just have fun out there" coaches. But I'm in the littlest part of the little league. As my son grows bigger, the baseball world expands too. Parents seem to change the deeper they get into the world of sports. I hear them around me at the snack shack, a bleacher or two over and definitely while waiting in line for sign-ups. As the odd-mom-out in this baseball world (my son probably has a season or two left in him), I listen and observe, knowing full well there will likely be fantastic blog fodder. And this cold, winter morning did not disappoint. Actually, it did--disappointed me as a parent but inspired me as a writer.

Amidst the usual competitive talk of travel teams, feeder schools and questionable umpire calls, the subject of Hebrew school made it's way into the conversation. It seems one of the dads behind me was fed up with his temple. Now that his son was approaching Bar Mitzvah age (13), the Hebrew program was becoming more intensive. The temple, it seems, had the "audacity" to schedule his son for two evenings a week. "Can you even believe it?" he questioned his partner-in-conversation. "What the hell is he supposed to do, not play football and baseball?" I sat there letting the question hang in mid-air, wondering if this was how he presented the situation to his young, impressionable son. It's not that I cared one way or another if his son went to Hebrew school. That is a family's personal choice. It was the way the question and priorities were framed in discussion that struck me. And so I was truly glad when one of the other parents he was talking to asked what I was thinking. "Are you religious? Do you practice at home?" He answered, "This may sound bad but we don't have time. My wife and I both work." Interesting how these same parents found time to travel all over the state for baseball games and somehow got the kids to nighttime practices. Again, it's a personal choice. It wasn't the choice I was reacting to as much as the attitude. Kids can sense what is important in a family. They know what parents value, what they make time for and what ultimately is most important in the pecking order.

It was no surprise then when the father continued, "I want my son to see what religion has to offer and then after his Bar-Mitzvah, he can decide if wants to continue with it." As a side, the father offered up the information that his parents had done the same thing and after his own Bar-Mitzvah, he was done--until he had kids that is.

I find it interesting that this father felt that phoning religion in was, in fact, exposing his son to the Jewish religion and culture and giving him a foundation from which to build (or not) upon. Wouldn't that be like letting his son play a few games of baseball a year and attending a football game or two as a complete exposure to sports? I understand that many people choose not to bring religion into their homes. But I don't understand why I keep running into parents who offer up religion to their children as an extracurricular activity--and one that is not very high on the priority list.

This conversation stuck with me for a few days. On one of those days, I happened to run into my own Rabbi and shared some of my thoughts with him. He told me of an interesting study which had showed that one-day-a-week Hebrew school had been found to sometimes turn children away from identifying with their religion. According to an article from the Baltimore Jewish Times, a 1975 study by Harold Himmelfarb observed that fewer than 1,000 hours of Jewish education can actually decrease a child's Jewish involvement because Hebrew school becomes a burden. The child does not spend enough time to enjoy the rewards of mastery, knowledge and belonging. And this study did not include the effects of one's parents role modeling the resistance to Hebrew school.

Why force your children to study a religion that is not practiced in the home and is clearly not an important part of your own life? When baseball and football come way before religious school, the writing is on the wall, certainly for the child who can sense hypocrisy as easily as we taste and smell. I hear parents complaining all the time about how hard it is to fit religious/Hebrew school into their lives. Let's be honest, baseball and Hebrew school or football and Sunday school can coexist if we, the parents, want them to. Baseball great Sandy Koufax illustrated that back in 1965 when he refused to pitch the first game of the World Series because it fell on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. And, still, the Dodgers won the series!