Balak, Balaam, and the Perfect Game

If you know me at all, you know that I'm probably one of the last people to talk sports. And when it comes to sports, I am probably least interested in baseball. It's not that I have anything against baseball; it just doesn’t captivate me. But a few weeks ago, a baseball game caught my attention. Well, to be honest, the aftermath of the game caught my attention. I didn’t know about the game until a few days after it had been played.

The game, played on Wednesday, June 2, pitted the Detroit Tigers against the Cleveland Indians. It was the top of the ninth inning and Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game. In baseball, a perfect game occurs when there are 27 batters up, 27 batters down, no walks, no hits, and no errors. There were two outs in the ninth inning and Cleveland's Jason Donald was up to bat. When Jason hit a ball towards the space between first and second base, the first baseman went for the ball while Galarraga left the pitcher’s mound to cover first base. The umpire, Jim Joyce, stood alongside Galarraga at first base, ready to make the call.

As the ball hit Galarraga's glove and the batter crossed the base, Jim Joyce, the umpire, had to make the call. Who had arrived first? The batter or the ball? With his arms spread to his sides, Joyce made the call. Jason Donald was safe. And Armando Galarraga’s hopes for a perfect game disappeared. The fans were disappointed, to say the least. Galarraga's teammates and coach doubted the call. But baseball has no instant replay. Joyce's call had to stand. Armando Galarraga grinned and Joyce, with a sort of, "Well, if that’s what you think you saw," kind of look, confident that the umpire had made a bad call, but with no recourse to do anything about it.

To be fair, Jim Joyce's task was onerous, to say the least. Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey explains, "When you have a play where the first baseman fields a ball to his right and the pitcher covers first, the thing you focus on is watching the fielder pick up the ball and make the throw, and then you turn your eyes to first base and watch and listen for the ball hitting the pitcher’s glove. At the same time you are watching the runner, but it is the sound of the ball hitting the glove that will trigger the call. I would imagine the noise of the crowd was so great, in view of the circumstances, that the umpire had trouble hearing the ball hit the pitcher’s glove."

With Donald on first, Galarraga pitched the twenty-eighth batter, who never made it to first base and the game was over. Some have dubbed it the '28-out perfect game.' But that’s not what I think made the game a perfect one. I think it's all in how Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce handled themselves and the situation.

Galarraga didn’t scream at the umpire. In fact, he didn't even respond to the umpire. He simply smiled, perhaps with a smile that expressed his dismay, but smiled nonetheless. Mary McHugh of The New American described him as "disappointed but classy." After the game, when Jim Joyce had the opportunity to review the tape and saw that he had, in fact, made a bad call, he approached Galarraga, even before Joyce had showered, to apologize. Galarraga thanked Joyce for the apology and, in the story I heard after the game, explained that he looked forward to showing his kids tape of his perfect game, even if the record books didn't record it.

This week's Torah portion, Balak, teaches us to be careful with the words that leave our lips. In the Torah, the Moabite king Balak, after whom the portion is named, becomes concerned with how numerous the Israelites have become and calls upon a Moabite prophet, Balaam, to curse the Israelites. The king offers Balaam riches for performing the task, but God seeks to intercept Balaam and stop him from cursing the Israelites. God even sends an angel to block Balaam's path, an angel that only Balaam's donkey can see, until the donkey begins to talk and tells Balaam why they can’t move forward. Still, in spite of God's persuasion and the talking donkey, Balaam still chooses to move forward with the king's men to curse the Israelites.

Three times, Balaam opens his mouth to curse the Israelites and he is instead filled with awe for God and a blessing comes out, instead. He wanted to say all the wrong things, but in the moment, he can only say all the right things. Among his words of blessing are the words, " Mah tovu ohalecha Ya'akov, mish-k'notecha Yisrael – How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel" (Numbers 24:5), words we recite in our morning liturgy. We take the words that were meant to be a curse, that instead were a blessing to us as a people, and recite them about ourselves. When all the right things come from our mouths, they are, indeed, words of blessing.

Rabbi Arthur Segal understands this moment with Balaam in this way: "Life really is not a battle of God versus man or good versus evil. Life is an eternal battle inside each of us between what we know is right and what we know is wrong. It is man's battle against himself. We all have the power to curse and the power to bless ... If Balaam's curses could be turned into blessings, perhaps we could turn our own personal adversities into opportunities for blessings as well."

The day after Galarraga's perfect game, Jim Joyce had home plate assignment in Detroit's afternoon game. When Jim Joyce took the field, most of the crowd rose to their feet and gave him a hand, bringing umpire Jim Joyce to tears. It was another perfect game, not because of the stats or the score, but because of its abundant blessings. Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Chukat - Learning to Do Things Differently

I heard a brief segment about the implications of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Science Friday this afternoon. One of the comments caught my ear. I wish I could tell you who said it. When asked what the worst possible outcome of the spill could be, one expert summed it up. She said, "Not to have learned anything from this." A lot of comparisons have been made between the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the recent one in the Gulf of Mexico. Better than knowing how many Exxon Valdezes equal each day of this crisis, we need to know how we can do better. While fines of BP may begin to offset some of the loss, what really matters is doing things differently. The host, Ira Flatow, noted that rather than President Obama declaring war on oil, he would have rather seen the President ask us all to chip in in our own communities. The President should have motivated us to help clean up local waterways and make an environmental impact that would ripple out to those around us. This might have a more profound impact than any efforts in the Gulf will have.

In this week's Torah portion, Chukat (which happens to be my Bar Mitzvah portion), Miriam dies. In the wilderness, Miriam was the source of water. We commemorate this role with Miriam's Cup on the Passover Seder table. The text tells that following Miriam's death at Kadesh, "The community was without water" (Numbers 20:2). You probably know the story that immediate follows this: Moses strikes the rock out of anger with the Israelites. But I want to jump about a chapter past that incident.

In the middle of Numbers chapter 21, amidst the verses I read when I became Bar Mitzvah, we read that God tells Moses to assemble the people so that God may give them water. Then, the Israelites sing to the well, requesting water from it. The words that introduce their song, "Az yashir Yisrael et-ha-shirah ha-zot - Then Israel sang this song" (Numbers 21:17), are the same words that introduce the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15:1). One midrash, Yalkut Shimoni, teaches us that at the Sea of Reeds, Moses had to lead the song, but at the well following Miriam's death, the Israelites gain the courage and maturity to sing for themselves.

Through Miriam's death, she passes the baton to the people, empowering them to find water for themselves. Though initially they are scared, so much so that they rebel against Moses causing him to lose his temper, the Israelites realize that they have to learn from the tragedy of Miriam's death and learn to do things differently. So, too, we need to respond to the oil spill. We may initially respond with anger and fury, but if we are to survive, we have to learn how to do things differently.

A Taste of Torah - Shelach-Lecha

So, twelve spies scout out the Promised Land. Ten of them return with a rather terrifying report of the land and its people. They describe grape clusters so big they need to be carried by multiple people, a land that devours the people, and people so large they made the spies look like grasshoppers in comparison. But two of the spies - Joshua and Caleb - talked about the wonders of the land, what it had to offer, and how with God's help, they would be able to conquer it.

Unfortunately, the people sided with the ten spies who came back with the terrifying report. God got angry and threatened to wipe out the people, only to be stopped by Moses who warned God about what the other nations would think of God if the Israelites were to all be wiped out.

Shelach-Lecha reminds us that what is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular. In the end, Joshua and Caleb were right, even though they weren't popular. Of the entire generation of the exodus from Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb set foot in the Promised Land, because of their faith in God and their faith in the Israelite community.