RABBI WEIN ON THE LOYAL FAN

One of my most beloved grandchildren (all of my grandchildren are most beloved but…) wrote to me last week and in the letter made a wonderful comparison between the frustrations of being a loyal baseball fan – almost a rabid supporter – of a bad and losing baseball team and reading and listening to the news reported from Israel about the quarrels, divisions and scandals that currently plague its national and religious society. Listening to the radio broadcast of another bumbling and inept performance by that baseball team, my grandchild turns off the radio in wall-climbing frustration only to switch on the radio again some time later in the forlorn hope that an amazing turnaround has occurred and that the team is now winning. So too it is with news of the squabbles and embarrassments about the issues and events of Israeli political and religious life that are so widely covered in the media. My grandchild is torn between ignoring the whole mess or reading and listening to all sides of the arguments and becoming emotionally involved in issues over which my grandchild has no influence or control. He, of course has no influence or control over the performance of the baseball team on the playing field either.