Dear Mayan_Dvash,

it is a universal sentiment. There is an old yiddish proverb that says the same thing:

If a bride can’t dance, she blames the musicians.

aren’t the teenage years supposed to be about learning to control your impulses? No one expects the young to be perfect, but we do expect them to learn.

I agree with pookie. The World Series, in particular, is a once-a-year event, and it is even rarer that your team participates in it.

As impulses go, the impulse to root for your team is one of the better ones. If you discourage it, the interest will only grow stronger in the child.

I can remember in the 1960’s, we would sneak transistor radios with earplugs into public school and Hebrew school, and nothing would stop someone from doing that. We learned elaborate signaling to let each other know what was happening.

Baseball is a wonderful and wholesome release, and teaches you a lot about life, teamwork, and individualism, at the same time.

We are lucky to have many Jewish players who played the game admirably, and set a good example of sportsmanship for all. The first two names that come to mind, of course, are Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax who played the game better than almost everyone, who never denied their Jewish identities, and were never involved in a scandal.

Hank Greenberg, who played baseball in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and endured more abuse for his heritage than any player who played pro baseball until Jackie Robinson.

He came very close to breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1938 (hitting 58 vs. Ruth’s longtime record of 60), and was arguably the best ballplayer around, at a time when Father Coughlin and Nazi propagandists were depicting Jews as physically substandard.

Greenberg’s comment to a friend, on the trolley, on the way home after the last game of the season, after just missing Ruth’s record: “58 home runs, that’s not such a bad year.”

He refused to play baseball on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, though the Detroit Tigers were involved in a pennant race; The fans said, “Rosh Hashanah comes once a year, but the Tigers haven’t won a pennant since 1909!” He faced taunts of the worst sort, included having players stare at him and having coarse racial epithets thrown at him. Examples of these imprecations were: “Hey Mo!” (referring to Moses) and “Throw a pork chop–he can’t hit that!”. Particularly abusive were the St. Louis Cardinals during the 1934 World Series.

After his pro career ended in the late 1940’s, he returned to baseball as a coach and an owner, mentoring many black ballplayers, who faced discrimination similar to that he faced.

Greenberg was idolized by millions of Jewish boys of that era, and helped them find their self-esteem at a time when serious anti-jewish messages were being broadcast throughout American society.

As Jackie Robinson himself said, “”Class tells. It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg.”

and what about Chanukah, which some Jewish communities in the galut don’t observe, since they left Israel before Chanukah was officially a holiday?

does that go for Independence Day and Bastille Day in France, too?

is there any halachic reason why divorce should be stigmatized? Doesn’t that put the people who have been divorced at a great disadvantage in finding a new mate and a better life? I always thought we weren’t supposed to stigmatize necessary divorces or divorcees.

as Saint Ambrose said, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Though this didn’t apply to Jews, we have managed to pick up some of the better parts of all the societies we lived in, and tried to keep the worst parts out of our lives.

There is good and bad in American culture, and those of us who are discussing this have much to be thankful for. Similar to the Pilgrims, we came here with hopes of being able to practice our religion freely, and to be free from persecution. America has accomplished this as successfully as any other country. I know there are flaws, but this is purely a relative measure.

One of the things Americans do right is to stop one day per year, take the day off from work, gather with our families, eat a feast, and let EVERYONE reflect on just how fortunate we are to be here, to have our bellies full, and to have our families around us.

I agree that one day of gratitude is not enough, but that is beside the point. One day is infinitely better than no days.

is that good or bad?

at least I was trying to make a serious point.

There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.

To you I’m an atheist; to G-d, I’m the Loyal Opposition.

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

More from Ashleigh Brilliant, playwright, cartoonist, and synopsizer of knowledge in 17 words or less:

My play was a complete success. The audience was a failure

If you don’t like my opinion of you, you can always improve

Please don’t lie to me, unless you’re absolutely sure I’ll never find out the truth

Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches

Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to

Unless you move, the place where you are is the place where you will always be

I always thought they were copying ours. or other peoples. Succoth becomes Thanksgiving. Saturnalia and pagan winter festivals become Christmas. Who’s doing the copying here?

could lead to wearing of colored shirts, or a shidduch crisis.

The computer thinks the CTRL key is being pressed.

first, try rebooting the computer, to make sure one of your keyboard tables hasn’t been altered accidentally.

If that doesn’t work, jiggle the CTRL key until it appears to be moving smoothly and freely. Turn the keyboard upside-down, and shake it. Then try jiggling again. There may be something, a crumb perhaps, jamming up the free movement of that key.

Usually one or the other will work. If the problem persists in Firefox, you may need a new keyboard, but that is relatively inexpensive.

Oomis, how did she check you out? Private Ayin? or other methods?

You are so right, artchill. The olive rarely falls far from the martini. Spend lots of time with the family, and check out the interactions.

Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.

When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last.

But besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. — Oscar Wilde

What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do

the unnecessary

Don’t hate yourself in the morning — sleep ’till noon.

My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.

Why are our days numbered and not, say lettered.

“Time’s fun when you’re having flies.” — Kermit the Frog

When I want your opinion, I will give it to you.

I knew it was serious when I found myself under a huppah, smashing a glass with my right foot.

marry in haste, repent at leisure.

yes, children just starting out on this noxious habit are a different story. They should know better, and it is probably our duty to tell them so.

I know some people who have such a strong addiction, that even the powerful drugs they use to overcome smoking addiction today don’t help much. It’s not because they’re weak-willed, either, there is something that is physiologically different about them. I am grateful that I have never smoked, and I have been able to give up other bad habits with relative ease, but I realize, from experience, that it is not the same for some others.

I’ll drink to that.

it happened before, and it can happen again. They’re right, sadly.

is Aramaic holy?

I would always find myself looking at some of the clues to the person’s true character: how do they treat the waitress? How do they react when things go wrong? How do they interact with their family members? Their roommates? Their friends? How do they speak of former dates, or former spouses?

In America, smoking has become rare. I just spent a few weeks in Israel, and boy, did I notice the difference. So many people smoke, particularly young girls. Oy.

In America, the slow abolition of smoking has been the results of three or four decades of publich health campaigns, public service announcements, dire warnings everywhere, and massive education in the schools.

In the 60’s, I can remember that most of the adults smoked. They smoked everywhere, even in hospital rooms. It was considered rude to comment on their smoking.

Now that’s all changed, for the better. I hope Israelis can learn the lessons we learned in America faster, but Moses did have to wander in the desert for 40 years waiting for the Israelites to lose their slave mentalities, before entering the Holy Land. Attitudes are slow to change.