Sukkos and the climax of the baseball season, the World Series, usually fall out very close to each other. Might there be a connection?
Many years ago, I attended a shul on the first day of Sukkos in which the decorum was not always stellar. It wasn’t easy to hold people’s attention during davening and Torah reading. And, as is the case in many shuls, even those where it is always quiet, it was especially difficult to get people to pay attention to the haftarah. (Of course, thisis one of the goals of this column.) The rabbi introduced the haftarah by focusing on its theme and tried hard to make it relevant. This is what he said the day I was there:
The year was 1998. Remember the Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa single season home run record race? All steroids aside, it was a story that grabbed the country’s imagination. After a baseball strike canceled the 1994 World Series, interest in the sport had waned, but this home run race created such an extreme curiosity that even non-sports fans were following the race. Babe Ruth had hit 60 and Roger Maris had technically passed him with 61, albeit with more games played, as many purists pointed out. McGwire and Sosa were approaching those numbers and the country was riveted. In the end, both broke the record: Sosa with 66 and McGwire setting the record with 70 (All steroids aside again, Barry Bonds later broke it with 73.)
With this story on everyone’s mind, the rabbi said that the section of Zechariah we were about to read (Perek 14) describes how at the conclusion of the epic war of Gog and Magog, just before Moshiach’s arrival, the nations of the world will come to celebrate Sukkos in the Beis HaMikdash. Sukkos usually falls out around the same time as the World Series. There’s a connection here. After the nations’ defeat and their recognition of Hashem Yisbarach, they will give up their struggles against Klal Yisrael and run home, to the ultimate home of all of mankind, to the place where Adam was created – Jerusalem. Their goal will be to hit the winning home run for all time and act in support of Klal Yisrael. It will be the ultimate World Series! How many core nations of the world are there? The Torah tells us there are 70! Is it any wonder then, said the rabbi, that McGwire hit 70 home runs to break the home run record?!
The rabbi got the shul’s attention and the haftarah was widely followed that day.
The story told in the haftarah of the first day of Sukkos brings to mind a vital concept in Torah thought.
We are the Am HaNivchar, “the Chosen People.” But what were we chosen for? As the pasuk in Yeshaya (42:6) – the haftarah for Parshas Bereishis – describes, we are to be ohr l’goyim, a light and inspiration to all other nations. Our ultimate goal is to teach the world the wisdom of the Torah and how to attain closeness with Hashem Yisbarach. Each nation and every individual person has a role to play in serving Hashem.
This is why Moshe was commanded to translate the Torah into 70 languages before Klal Yisrael would enter Eretz Yisrael (see Rashi on the words “Ba’eir Heiteiv,” Devarim 1:5 and 27:8). The ultimate goal of Klal Yisrael’s entry into the Holy Land was teaching the entire world about Hashem and His wisdom.
Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky, zt”l in his sefer on Chumash (Bereishis 1:22 and 9:25), stresses that we must never feel elitist as a nation. We inherited spiritual greatness from our Avos and Imahos, and thus we have more mitzvos and responsibilities than the seven given to Bnei Noach; however, every human being has a role in Hashem’s plan. Rav Gedalya Schorr writes in Ohr Gedalyahu (Shemini Atzeres, page 32) that the avodah of Sukkos is to glean and gather all the sparks of holiness that exist among the nations of the world and assemble them into our spiritual consciousness. Rav Tzadok HaKohen (Tzidkas HaTzadik 47) writes that every nation has a special spiritual quality in which only it excels. This is why we find our prophets lamenting the destruction of any nation, as its particular spiritual quality will be lost as well.