Dear Friends,

The White Sox won the World Series.  I am ecstatic – and still on cloud nine as I write this letter. As many of you know, I flew to Chicago for games one and two of the series. I managed to get tickets through a rabbinic connection. The games were thrilling.  The second game, in particular, will go down as one of the great games in World Series history featuring, as it did, both a grand slam home run and a game-ending (walk-off) home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. The excitement in the ballpark, the buzz in the city, the sheer joy and exuberance of it all left me on a kind of high. I told Louise that I can never remember such simple, uncomplicated fun.

I know that there is a percentage of you out there thinking that your rabbi has gone off the deep end – probably the same percentage that is looking up definitions of “grand slam” and “walkoff.”  (Call me if you can’t fi nd out what the terms mean.) I actually ask myself why I care so much. I don’t entirely understand my passion. I know that it is not an important interest, in the grand scheme of things. The moral fabric of society, the lack of universal health-care coverage, funding for quality public education, peace in the Middle East – those are but a few of the issues that really matter. The fact that neither Chicago baseball team had won a World Series since the Russian Revolution is totally trivial in this light, as is my personal devotion to the South Side team.  So why care?

Sports is an outlet to get away from everything else; baseball is a kind of alternative universe. And following the White Sox, a perennial also-ran, the second team in the Second City (the Cubs have been far more popular, even in Chicago – until now, that is) is nothing less than a fantastic escape.  It is a return to boyhood and old neighborhood friends, to baseball caps and family outings to the ballpark, to dropping peanut shells on the ground. To this day, there is little that is more beautiful to me than walking into a ballpark for a night game and seeing the field brightened by gigantic light towers. Baseball – all baseball – contains within it elements of Field of Dreams and The Natural, fantasy, hope and poetry. What is more beautiful than seeing a double play turned around the infi eld? (Again, call me if you don’t follow.) Losing teams can become winners. Redemption is possible. Miracles can happen. Hopes can be fulfi lled. Patience is a virtue. Loyalty can be rewarded. Moses can enter the Promised Land. (More on that another time.) The dreaded, always-potent Yankees won’t always win. How can anyone not be a fan?

This was the summer for my boys of summer.

Now onto other, more/less serious matters. The capital campaign is drawing to a close this month. Now is the time to step up to the plate to ensure not only that it is successful, but that all of us invest ourselves in the future of our congregation. Please consider generous support.

It has come to my attention that only 25% of the congregation has joined the Association of Reform Zionists of America, or ARZA. This is THE way we have to support the growth of Reform Judaism in Israel – a pressing mandate for our time. For more information on ARZA please go to www.ARZA.org. To join ARZA as a member of Temple Micah please contact the Temple office at administrator@templemicah.org. [Webmaster note: just click the arza tab; fill in your name; click submit and you're done!] Annual ARZA dues are a mere $36.  Finally, may the lights of Hanukkah burn brightly in your home.

Shalom,
Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel

Editor’s note:
In an effort to help our baseball-challenged readers, the Vine is pleased to supply the following key to understanding Rabbi Zemel’s column:

• A grand slam is a homerun hit with the bases loaded – four runs score.
• A walk-off home run is one that is hit by a batter for the home team at the bottom of the ninth or subsequent innings. It provides the winning run and allows the players to “walk off” the fi eld.
• A double play occurs when the defensive team gets two offensive players out in the same play (in other words, virtually at once). This most often (but not always) takes place at fi rst and second bases, is rather complicated to explain, but very exciting to watch (if your team is in the fi eld, that is).
• Boys of summer are baseball players.
• The World Series is the championship.
• The New York Yankees have won 26 championships, more than any other team.
• The Russian Revolution occurred in 1917, the last year the Chicago White Sox won the World Series.
• The North Side team, the Chicago Cubs, last won the series in 1908.
• Chicago, the childhood home of both Temple Micah rabbis, is a city of eternal optimists.