For many years, while I lived in
New Jersey, my friend and colleague, Rabbi Robert Fierstien and I used to meet
weekly for a 9 hole round of golf at a short hole course. If by chance we hit a
good shot it was “Way to go Tiger.” Tiger Woods was our hero: the unstoppable;
the man who would smash all of the golf records. We admired him, this man who
was half our age, as we fantasized that someday overnight we would have his
swing given to us as a gift from God. We were far from alone: there was
adulation everywhere Tiger Woods turned. And now, an early am mishap with his
car—it is still not clear why he zigzagged down the street hitting the hydrant
and the tree; especially if he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol--,
has revealed that all was not well in Tigerland. His marriage seems to be rocky
and his fidelity to it has crumbled with ever increasing revelations. His
apology leaves the public ever eager to find out more dirt. This appears to be
the price for the adulation; that the barrier between public and private
persona vanishes.
How did it come to pass that we
canonized him? Indeed why is it that we grant sainthood to people who can hit a
ball, whether with a bat or a golf club, better than most mortals, or kick it
or throw it harder or faster or run or swim faster or jump higher? What
qualifies them for beatification? Why do we assume that they are paragons of virtue
and then express dismay and shock when it turns out that they have clay feet?
We are appalled that baseball players pumped themselves up with steroids. Truth
be told, we are only appalled when they are on our teams, like A-Rod of the
Yankees; we had schandenfreude when Mark McGwire and Bobby Bonds were outed.
Now we discover that not only Tiger sometimes can’t always win the majors—this
past year he didn’t make the cut at the US Open and lost the lead on the final
day at the PGA Championship--, but that his personal life is perhaps best kept
private.
Clearly there is a hunger in our
society for models. And when celebrities, from whatever field, disappoint with
their behaviors, we are crushed. Why we believe that these people by virtue of
their talents must also be pure-hearted and worthy of emulation in all facets
of their lives, not just their professional lives, I am not sure. It is
certainly not the Biblical approach, I would venture to say that with scarcely
an exception Biblical figures, and I would include God in that category (and
that is a good discussion for another time), are revealed to be imperfect. And
precisely because of their human flaws (God excepted), we can still admire them
because the Biblical tradition didn’t set them on pedestals out of reach.
Certainly that is the case with the
patriarch Jacob. Early on in life he lives up to the origins of his name, heel.
He swindles his famished brother out of the birthright and is readily persuaded
by his mother to take advantage of his blind father who thinks he is dying to
obtain the blessing of the first-born reserved for his brother Esau. (It should
be noted that Isaac lives on for many years. So unless Jacob the youth was
close to 100 when he pulled this off with his mother the swithcheroo, Isaac
though feeling old, was not dying. As we saw in this morning’s reading he lived
to 180.) Jacob regains his sneaky pattern, after he is burned by his equally
sneaky uncle Laban, who hoodwinks him into marrying both of his daughters—that
wedding night celebration must’ve been 200 proof for Jacob not to realize that
Leah was in the tent waiting for him--. Jacob genetically manipulates the
flocks in his favor and prospers at the expense of his uncle and his cousins.
With his wrestling match with the
unknown divine figure, Jacob is transformed into Israel, the man who wrestled
with the divine. Yisrael clearly also has the hint that this crooked man has
become straight. Shift the dot from left to right and you get Yashar-Ayl, the
man who was straight with God or was straightened out by God.
And yet, if you look back and read
through the encounter with Esau, Israel post divine wrestling match, is less
than forthright with his brother. He seems to revert to his old persona Jacob. His
brother, who has prospered in the intervening years, is ready to reconcile.
Indeed, Esau invites him to stay near him and suggests that they travel
together. Jacob/Israel declines. He mumbles something about the burden of the
flocks and young children which will slow him down and then assures his brother
that proceeding at the pace of his cattle and children he will in time arrive
in Seir, where Esau has established his base. And what does the text then tell
us? Esau headed south and Jacob first goes to Succoth and then to Shechem, both
in the north. They come together again only to bury their father Isaac.
While in some of the Christian
traditions, Jacob has been canonized—for example, in the Russian Orthodox Church
of the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, Russia, most of the major Biblical
figures including Jacob are depicted in mosaics as saints-- clearly the Bible is not uncomfortable
with depicting him as a humanly flawed individual. True, later tradition is
uncomfortable both with the negative depiction of Jacob and the generally
positive character of Esau and they are both transformed, particularly in the
light of whom they symbolized in Roman times. Jacob clearly was Israel and so
his past had to be scrubbed and somehow Esau who had been transformed first
into Edom and then subsequently from Edom into Rome had to be besmirched. (One
wonders if it was the persona of the Roman lackey Herod the Idumean—Idumea was
the name given to the Edomites in the 1st century BCE-- that was the
link that enabled early exegesis to take Edom, a clearly Mid-eastern tribal
group into the mighty Romans.) As for this negative transformation of Esau qua
Rome, one simple example will suffice. When Jacob and Esau meet the text says “Vayishakayhu,
and he [Esau] kissed him and they wept.” Certainly understandable; a kiss of
reconciliation, bound up with a sense of lost time, leading to a good cry by
both of them. But if you look carefully at the Hebrew text—and it is in the
scroll, as well--, there are dots over the letters of Vayishkayhu,
denoting a special Massoretic tradition of interpretation. And what is the
thrust of that interpretive tradition? Esau’s kiss was not a kiss of reconciliation.
No, read the text as though it read Vayinashkayhu, he bit him,
Dracula style. And why did they cry? Because, as the midrash explains, Jacob’s
neck turned to stone and so Esau cried when his teeth broke and Jacob cried
that Esau was still out to get him. Voila, transformations.
We do that, as well. Witness what
is happening with Tiger Woods. All of the dirt is coming out; all of his
indiscretions. And so we have already begun to see revised biographies of Tiger
in which the great player becomes the scum of the earth. It is because we can’t
live with slight imperfections; we have to paint people in black and white. And
yet what is most intriguing is that we have an amazing capacity to move on.
Just witness the attitudes to former Governor Spitzer and his efforts at
rehabilitation. We also love such stories of moral redemption; but that is
another sermon.
For the moment, we will be
bombarded with dirty linen stories about Tiger Woods. As painful as it is,
perhaps it will serve us as a healthy corrective to our desire to apotheosize
athletes and other celebrities. Just as we can learn from the virtues and flaws
of our Biblical ancestors, perhaps our society can grow up and learn from the
flaws of our one-time heroes.
Shabbat shalom.
