Magic Jewball

People always ask me, what’s the proper greeting for Yom Kippur? So if I see Suzyn Waldman, hurrying out of the WCBS booth at today’s delayed Yankee game to get to services, what should I say? Happy Yom Kippur? Happy Holidays? Seasons Greetings? (Well, it is a season, the season of repentance… but that’s a stretch.)

There are several options. Yom Kippur isn’t a holiday in the secular, Madonna sense. Celebraaaate! It’s a holy day, in the old-timey, Biblical sense. It’s the last piece in a period of reflection that begins over a month before, where we think about ourselves, what we have done wrong, how we can make those wrong things right, and hope that God shows mercy. On Yom Kippur, we fast and spend nearly twenty-four hours in continuous prayer. At the beginning we ask God to inscribe us in the “book of life” a metaphor for forgiving our sins and allowing us to have a good life for another year. At the end of Yom Kippur, the “book” is closed and sealed. So the most traditional greeting is:

Gmar chatimah tovah (Gmahr ha-tee-mah toe-vah) = may your finished sealing be good
That is, may you be sealed in the book of life with a good outcome.

This can be shortened to Gmar tov (gmahr tove), literally, “a good finish,” but really a shorter way of saying the above.

You can also still say, “Shana tova” (shah-nah toe-vah), or, a good new year.

There is also “have an easy fast,” which I’ve inherited a non-fondness for, because my mother used to say, quite rightly, that the point of Yom Kippur is to suffer so that one really turns inward to think of their behavior and past actions. So having an easy fast defeats the purpose, really. She used to say (and others do too), “have a meaningful fast.” Of course, you can cover all bases by saying, “have an easy and meaningful fast.” But it’s perfectly acceptable to go with the standard, “have an easy fast,” and I promise, no Jew will ever answer you, “don’t tell me what kind of fast to have!”

Not to mention, this is all easy for me to say, since I’m on medication that doesn’t allow me to fast. But I’m not eating steak frites either.

Anyhoo, thanks for the good wishes, and thanks to the Yankees for having an early game so Suzyn and I can attend evening services without missing the game. I’d also like to say that I’m sorry for anything I might have done to hurt anyone this year and I hope that you’ll forgive me. In conclusion, clinch early and clinch often.

Hothouse Flowers – I’m Sorry

Rare Saturday post, written in advance (mostly way in advance and by someone else).

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

“Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky.

“When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift – that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies – that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter – that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body – it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed – that’s the finest I know.

“So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”

Lou Gehrig, July 4, 1939, Yankee Stadium

Here is the thing about the new Yankee Stadium. Since I doubt I’ll ever be able to actually afford a ticket, I just want to know how it looks on TV. And if something in the water will make the Yankees play better. I guess I’ll find out both soon enough.

Ladies & gentlemen, baseball….

Thin Lizzy – The Boys Are Back In Town

I’m a little high on Vicodin at the moment so bear with me.

You’ll laugh at that intro if you saw the A-Rod press conference today. I only saw the first bit and could barely hear even that as I was in the waiting room of my endodontist and the sound was turned way down on the fancee HDTV. But I did hear the first sentence and I was relieved that I did. See, when I was a kid, I never did homework. Never. God knows how I made it out of any grade. So when there was the sort of assignment that involved the teacher calling on you (“Becca, could you come up front and do your oral report?”) I’d get horrifically nervous, knowing that I’d have to say in front of my teacher and the entire class, “uh, sorry, I didn’t do my homework.” That never made me do the prep work the next time, though. I was young and stupid! My cousin in the Dominican told me it was harmless!

*cough*

Today, (well, yesterday, but the Vikes made me fall asleep at 7 so now I’m awake watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network) I had a root canal, my first ever, and I was super-nervous. It was at 1:30, coincidentally the same time as A-Rod’s press conference. And then I realized that at this very moment in time, I would rather be me than a multi-million dollar earning, fun baseball playing superstar. Because I’d prefer getting six painful shots and a vibrating drill stuck in my mouth over standing up in front of authority figures, my peers, and the whole world seemingly and having to say, “uh, I did the wrong thing and I have no real explanation – oops!” And if I was afraid that someone as public and savvy as A-Rod might not be as nervous as I would be, he started off by saying, “first, bear with me. I’m a little nervous or a lot nervous, so bear with me a little bit.” Awesome! The root canal was nowhere near as bad and that made me feel better.

PS, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: A-Rod is not a real Yankee and it has nothing to do with steroids. Thanks for understanding.

Howard Jones – No One Is To Blame