Eli Kligman has several things in common with one of professional baseball’s greatest left-handed pitchers, Sandy Koufax. Both are Jewish and both put their faith ahead of their baseball careers.
Kligman is currently a high school senior and the star pitcher for his Las Vegas high school baseball team. He is also a great hitter and can play any infield position with skill. But he won’t take the field on Friday evenings or Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. His teammates count on him and it hasn’t been easy for him to stick to his decision week after week.
Sandy Koufax played for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team and in 1965 helped them earn a spot in the World Series. Everyone expected him to pitch in the first game of the series. A victory in that game would have been a powerful psychological boost to the Dodgers against the Minnesota Twins. But Sandy didn’t pitch that first game because October 1st that year was also Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement in the Jewish Calendar. Koufax also sat out games in which he would normally have pitched in April, 1959 and again in 1961 and 1963 because of Jewish holidays.
But it is not only Jewish holidays which conflict with professional responsibilities. Devout Muslims may follow the practice of praying five times each day by going into seclusion, kneeling on a prayer rug, facing Mecca and reciting prayers. The exact times of prayer are different in different locations and times of the year. Sometimes these prayers conflict with meetings or other work-related responsibilities. But with a little advance planning, it should be possible to schedule breaks to coincide with prayer times, aided by smart phones which have apps that provide the schedule.
It seems to me that we need to practice tolerance for the closely held beliefs of others and find ways to accommodate the associated practices.
- Herb