Kol Nidrei 5771 Temple Shir Tikva Rabbi Neal Gold
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Perfect! Kol Nidrei 5771 Temple Shir Tikva Rabbi Neal Gold On the evening of June 2, Armando Galarraga was unstoppable. The 28 year-old Venezuelan pitcher for the Detroit Tigers was on the mound in front of his home crowd, and everything was going his way. It was the top of the 9 th inning, the Tigers were leading the Cleveland Indians 3-0, and Galarraga was pitching a perfect game. A perfect game, of course, is a pitcher’s most elusive goal. It is a remarkable thing for a pitcher to throw for an entire game and to give up no hits, no walks. The pitcher faces 27 batters, and each of the 27 is retired without reaching a single base. There have only been twenty perfect games in the history of Major League Baseball. And that evening, Tiger fans were on shpilkes, for there had never been a perfect game in the 110-year history of their team. The Indians had been unable to touch Galarraga all day. Now, in the top of the 9 th, their 2nd baseman came up to bat. Gallaraga looked in, pitched another fast ball, and the batter cracked a line drive to center field… where Tigers outfielder Austin Jackson made a heartstopping over-the-shoulder catch at the warning track for the first out. The perfect game was preserved. A ripple of excitement went through the crowd, and fans rose to their feet, aware that they were in the presence of a historical moment. Two outs to go. The next batter grounded out to short, and then Galarraga was one away from that perfect number 27. The Indians’ shortstop Jason Donald, came to the plate. He drew a ball, and then a strike. With the count 1-1, he hit a wobbly ground ball towards the hole between first and second. The Tigers first baseman stepped up and cleanly fielded the ball. He tossed it to Galarraga, who ran over to cover first. The throw clearly beat the runner by half a stride. Galarraga caught the ball, stepped on the bag in time, and the first base umpire made the call… safe at first. Safe? The entire crowd of 17,000 in the stadium knew the runner was out. When you watch the play on YouTube, you can hear this murmuring from the crowd in that moment, as if nobody knows what to do. Everyone had been ready to rejoice in the aura of a once-in-a-lifetime event. Now confusion took over. On the field, Armando Galarraga’s emotions remained as in-control as his fastball. He said nothing. He smiled gently, returned to the mound, and five pitches later, retired the last batter. The umpire who made the call at first was Jim Joyce. Joyce is 54 years old and has been a Major League umpire for 21 years. His career has been illustrious: He is generally regarded as the best in the game. He has officiated in 13 postseasons, including the 2004 American 1 League Championship Series, where the Sox made their legendary comeback after trailing 3 games to 0. Recalling the play at first, Jim Joyce said, “I felt good when I made the call. But halfway off the field was the time I knew I probably missed it.” 1 That was when the Tigers manager came out and said to him, “You blew it!” And the fans had some helpful words of constructive criticism for him, too. Joyce went up to the umpires’ dressing room and he watched a replay. He saw that the runner clearly should have been out. And he began to realize the implication of his blown call. “I took a perfect game away from that kid over there who worked his tuchiss off all night,” he said. (He didn’t actually say tuchiss.) So a message was sent to Armando Galarraga in the Tigers’ clubhouse. “He needs to talk to you.” Galarraga came up to the umpires’ room. When the two were face to face, Joyce found that he couldn’t speak. So Galarraga simply walked up to the umpire, and hugged him. And as his tears started to flow, Jim Joyce said two words: “ Lo siento. [I am sorry.]” It was a remarkable moment, a moment of great humility. And Galarraga, to his great credit, forgave him. Now, you may remember that the initial public response to the blown call was mixed. As you can imagine, there was a certain element of the fan base that responded with rage. The blogs went ballistic, as they always do. Jim Joyce was threatened with violence. Major League Baseball was forced to hire special security guards to keep surveillance at Joyce’s home, and at his mother’s home in Toledo, Ohio. And a completely unrelated Ohio man who happened to have the name “Jim Joyce,” was forced to have his phone service turned off, because that very evening he started to get obscene and threatening phone calls. Someone, you see, had posted his name, address, and phone number on Facebook. 2 Such is the mindset of a certain category of sports fan. However, other people had a different, more noble response. The next day, Jim Joyce was back on the field, ready to ump that day’s Tigers game. And before the game began, it was Armando Galarraga who walked out onto the field to present the Detroit Tigers’ lineup card to him. Joyce began to weep again as he took the card, and there was a respectful applause that came from the stands. Apparently, many fans saw the spirit of forgiveness on display, and the courage that comes with it. You know, there is so much to be cynical about when it comes to professional sports. From crybaby millionaire players, greedy owners, scandals on and off the field, to the coarsest of commercial culture, there are scant role models. Each new scandal reinforces the image that sportsmanship is a thing of the past. And how many parents have cringed when they’ve brought children to the stadium and seen the spectacle put on by the worst-behaved fans? I know I have. Therefore, I think fans were thirsty for a positive role model, for sportsmen who 1. Tom Verducci, with special reporting by Melissa Segura, “A Different Kind of Perfect,” Sports Illustrated, June 14, 2010. 2.“Wrong Name, Wrong Number,” Associated Press, http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5250307 2 represent values and virtues that transcend the playing field. And we found two of them that day. Jim Joyce found this out when he was in the Detroit airport, departing for his next series. He recalled that as he made his way past security, a policeman stopped him, stuck his hand out, and said, “Thank you.” He was being thanked for his dignity, his grace—his apology. Joyce recalled, “The police officer is out there every day with his life on the line, and he’s thanking me?”3 These are the humble words of a class-act, someone whom in Judaism we would call—a mensch. I remind us of this tonight because I am inspired by their story. And Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga, G-d bless them, model the essence of this evening of Kol Nidrei. Our Yom Kippur prayers are saturated with themes of seeking and granting forgiveness. We know that we have made mistakes, inadvertently and occasionally on purpose, and in so doing, we have hurt others and we have hurt ourselves. When the umpire sought out the pitcher in the locker room that evening, he was modeling a very Jewish way of seeking forgiveness. After all, what is so appealing about this story? Consider: • First, Jim Joyce confessed that he had made a mistake. He didn’t rationalize how it happened. He didn’t say, “The sun was in my eyes,” or “I was distracted by a fan,” or “I had a bad angle and couldn’t see clearly.” Sports Illustrated reported it this way: “Distraught and emotional, he admitted with brutal honesty that he had just blown the biggest call of his life.” 4 • Next: he took responsibility immediately. He didn’t wait for weeks of media frenzy to die down. He didn’t write about it in a memoir years after the fact. Within moments of his awareness of his mistake, he sought out the pitcher. • Next: His apology to Galarraga was face-to-face. He didn’t do it over email, or through a mutual friend. He had the courage to apologize directly, without a mediator. • Finally: He felt real remorse. His very public tears testify to that. Friends, on this Kol Nidrei eve, we are all Jim Joyce. Tonight, and all day tomorrow, we confront ourselves not in idealized visions, but as we really are: with our faults and our strengths; with our virtues and our weaknesses. And what do we do? First, we confess that we have made mistakes. The hallmark of the Yom Kippur prayerbook is called Vidui, a confession. It does not rationalize, mitigate, or make excuses: It forces us to say, What have I done? 3. Verducci & Segura 4. Verducci & Segura 3 Second, we take responsibility immediately. h,nht uhJ f g t«k ot said the great sage Hillel: If not now, when? 5 Third, we seek our forgiveness face-to-face, if possible. Our prayerbook quotes the words of the Mishna, which says: For transgressions against G-d, Yom Kippur atones. But for transgressions between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not – it cannot – atone until they make peace with each other.