To Life!

SPORTS

TORAH PORTION

Rolling A Strike

Teen bowler gets to meet,
and beat, her idol.

Steve Stein

Special to The Jewish News

0

ne of Sarah Nagel's favor-
ite athletes is Professional
Bowlers Association Hall of
Famer Pete Weber.
"Even though he's very emotional
during his matches, he's very serious
about his game; and so am I," said
Nagel, 16, a Waterford resident and
Waterford Kettering High School junior.
Nagel had a chance to meet Weber
earlier this month and bowl with him
in a pro-am event held the day before
the nationally televised finals of the
PBA Tour's Motor City
Classic at Taylor Lanes.
Guess who bowled the
higher game? Nagel rolled
216 to Weber's 210.
Nagel shrugged off the
victory ...
.
somewhat.
"Pete had bowled all day
and didn't make it to the
tournament finals, so I'm
sure he looked our game as a
practice game,' Nagel said. "But I
thought I'd be intimidated, a nervous
wreck; and I wouldn't even be
able to hold onto the ball.
"It was an amazing experience.
I'd love to do it again. Pete was very
polite. It was like bowling with a friend.
We even exchanged high fives after a
couple of my strikes."
Nagel, who averages about 175, also
bowled a game each with two other
PBA pros. She lost to Sean Rash 225-
183 and to Jim Pratt 278-195. Pratt also
left a good impression on Nagel, offer-
ing her tips on the differences between
throwing for strikes and spares.
A former avid basketball player,
Nagel gave up hoops this year to con-
centrate on bowling. She won several
bowling medals at the Maccabi
Games this summer after helping the
Kettering girls' bowling team qualify for
the state tournament and win its sec-
ond consecutive league championship
last winter.
"I love the competition in bowling
and the opportunities the sport has
opened for me, like winning college
scholarship money in tournaments,"
Nagel said.

Split Personality
There's an old-new look to the B'nai
B'rith Youth Organization's M. Jacob and
Sons AZA flag football league. The 13
teams are divided into Competitive and
Fraternal divisions.
"It's been done in the past, and we
decided to do it again this year': said
AZA athletic chair Eric Steingold. "I
think its working well because some
chapters are serious about playing, and
some are just play for fun."
Michigan Region BBYO Assistant
Director Anna Dorf and Steingold
made the decision to have two divisions.
Games are being played Sunday
afternoons at the Jewish
Community Center in West
Bloomfield, with the playoffs
scheduled for Dec. 3. Winners
will be crowned in both divi-
sions that day.
• Jolson A and Jolson B
(4-0) were on top of the
Competitive Division as of
early November, followed by
Kishon (3-1), Greenberg A (2-
1), Jolson C and Tzavah A (1-2), Shapiro
A (1-3) and Shapiro B (0-4).
Rabin (4-0) topped the Fraternal
Division. Greenberg B (2-2), Chazohn
and Fisher (1-3) and Tzavah B (0-3)
were behind the leaders.
Steingold, 17, of Farmington Hills is a
North Farmington High School junior.
He belongs to the Jolson AZA chapter,
but he doesn't play football.

Sudden End
Beverly Hills Detroit Country Day quar-
terback Ben Rosenfeld threw a 23-yard
touchdown pass in the second quarter
of the Yellowjackets' Division 5 district
championship game against Madison.
But Country Day was upset 26-12,
bringing a disappointing close to an
otherwise satisfying autumn for the
Yellowjackets.
After facing five state playoff qualifiers
during the regular season, Country Day
was expected to go deep in the playoffs.
But the Yellowjackets ran into an unde-
feated Madison team in the midst of the
best football season in school history
and finished 8-3.
Country Day went 3-6 last year. P

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sports@thejewishnews.com.

34

November 16 • 2006

The Divine In Each Of Us

Shabbat Chaye Sara:
Genesis 23:1-25:18;
Kings 1:1-31.

W by does the
alien residents?
Torah devote
However, a closer look at
an entire
the text reveals that the issue
chapter to the burial of
at stake is the very universal
Sarah in this week's por-
human condition, the fact that
tion — 20 verses? Why
from a divine perspective,
does the sacred text
all people, not just Jews, are
discuss with such detail
resident strangers in a world
Abraham's procurement of
of flux and mortality. With the
a proper burial place?
reality that land is never sold
Rabbi Irwin
Until this point, no one's
"forever': God is teaching the
Groner
death has evoked this
basic
fact that nothing is per-
Special to the
much concern. Biblical
manent
— for any of us.
Jewish News
characters are born, live
Perhaps because Abraham
and die. Even Noah receives no special
is aware of the resident-stranger condi-
eulogy. So, all the devotion, bargaining
tion of humanity, he seeks a permanent
and patience that Abraham expresses in burial site for Sarah. Indeed, the chap-
making sure that Sarah rests properly in ter ends with the declaration that the
eternal peace seem all the more worthy
cave became the "uncontested property"
of our scrutiny.
of Abraham.
A clue can be found in the phrase
We have to understand that Abraham,
Abraham uses to describe himself to
being the first monotheist, under-
-
stands death differently than anyone
the children of Het: ger v'toshave
— alien and resident.
who ever lived before him. Upon this
gravesite Abraham is creating an "eter-
Why does Abraham describe himself
nal" monument, which stands for an
with such ambivalent, almost para-
existence beyond the body's expiration.
doxical terms? On one hand, the phrase
Otherwise, there would be no reason
captures Abraham in exile, with one
foot here and one foot there. It describes to be so scrupulous about Sarah's
gravesite. Abraham is teaching that the
Jews in the diaspora: paying taxes like
corollary of the fact that every person is
good citizens, mastering the legal sys-
tem, culture and language down to their created in the divine image, is infused
with "a portion of the divine from
subtlest nuances — a resident in every
above" is that we are endowed with a
sense of the word.
piece of eternity which lives beyond our
Being Jewish means that you're also
physical existence.
part of a nation, not just a religion.
Hence, the Jewish customs of death,
Inevitably, living in a host country,
the significance of kever yisrael (a
head-on collision occurs, even an old-
Jewish burial), is derived from this
timer can end up feeling like an alien, a
week's portion. Why do we gather when
stranger.
the stone is unveiled? Because all of our
Abraham's ger-toshav is more than
just the Jews' diaspora view of the world. customs are based on the idea that there
is an eternity — a reality based on
Existentially, every human being's con-
beyond this reality, a life of the spirit. E
nection to the world is temporary, his
existence tempered by the experiences
Irwin Groner is rabbi emeritus of
which remind him of mortality.
Congregation Shaarey Zedek of Oakland
In parshat Behar, we read of God's
County.
command that once every 50 years —
the jubilee year — all purchased lands
must return to the original owners. "And
the land shall not be sold in perpetuity,
Conversations
Why did Abraham refer to the
for the land is mine; you are strang-
land he bought for Sarah's
ers and settlers with me" (Leviticus
burial with two terms: alien and
25:23). Isn't it odd that God repeats the
resident? How are these terms
ambivalent idea of the ger-toshav when
relevant to the conditions of the
one would think that the Jews, at least
modern Jew?
in the land promised to their ancestor
Abraham, would not live as strangers, as