Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Slide Over, Koufax: So Does Alex Rodriguez Now Qualify As a Jewish Baseball Player?

Is A-Rod the greatest Jewish baseball player ever?

So one quite awesome detail about the A-Rod/Madonna story is that according to the New York Post, A-Rod has reportedly been studying Kabbalah, a "Jewish mystical practice popularized by Madonna."

OK. Hold it right there.

I am officially embracing A-Rod as an officially unofficially officially Jewish baseball player.

Today was already sizing up as an amazing one for fans of Jewish baseball players -- perhaps the most selective of all of the various segments of baseball players. Kevin Youkilis appears to be headed for an All-Star Game starting position, and Ryan Braun was giving Kosuke Fukudome a run for his money as the 3rd NL outfield starter.

But this tops them both. I welcome A-Rod to the meshpuchah as an honorary participant.

Hank Greenberg. Sandy Koufax. (Rod Carew, per Commenters). Alex Rodriguez.

This changes everything.

-- D.S.

6 comments:

jjj said...

Kabbalah is about as jewish as 'jews for jesus'...

bird said...

Sweeze, while Kabbalah is not exactly Judaism according to Hoyle, unlike Jews for Jesus, Kabbalah has been around for hundreds of years. Let's just say that Kabbalah has more Jewish precepts (no acceptance of Jesus as a savior, for example) than does Jews for Jesus (an oxymoron if I ever heard one!)

Speaking of Sandy Koufax, I was looking at a book on criminal case law the other day. I'm not making this up--among the author's dedications was to "Sandy Koufax, for not pitching on Yom Kippur"! Oy vey!

Brendan Smith said...

Shanoff,
What no Rod Carew on that list? He's a hall of famer that actually converted to Judaism. That's a little more special than A-Rod taking spirtual advice from...umm...Madonna. Don't you think?

Unknown said...

Kabbalah has been around for as ever long as Judaism has been - so we're talking thousands of years, not hundreds. At heart, it's a different way of reading and understanding Jewish texts.

The garbage Madonna & co. practices is not Kabbalah... it's some commercialized boulderdash that passes itself off as (a) something relevant and (b) related to Judaism. Yet, Madge & co. maintain you don't have to convert to Judaism to be a Kabbalist. Qualification (b) is problematic because Judaism and Kabblah are inextricably intertwined and you cannot be one without being the other.

So let's wait for Madge to send out those invites to Lourdes' bat-mitzvah and for A-Rod to show up to temple for the high holy days (Koufax didn't play on Yom Kippur!) before we keep perpetuating the myth either has anything to do with Kabbalah. And by the way A-Rod, we hope you're circumsized because otherwise that's step one in your conversion process.

Unknown said...

Shanoff,

Rod Carew is NOT Jewish. He is married to a Jewish woman and his daughters were raised Jewish, but he did not convert.

The confusion was caused by this SI cover that showed him wearing the Hebrew letter "Chai" around his neck. http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/8583/index.htm

Brendan Smith said...

Bob,
I looked up Mr. Carew and I stand corrected, you were quite correct. He never did convert. Thank you for sheading light on my ignorance in regards to Mr. Carew

However, the point remains; if you are taking spiritual advice from Madonna, you have serious issues.

Cordially,
Brendan Smith