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14114 Zcietot

Editorial

Leaving Mitzrayim

0

nce again, the Children of Israel
need to leave Mitzrayim.
Mitzrayim, the Hebrew word
for Egypt used in the Haggadah and today,
also translates to a narrow or cramped
place that causes distress and hardship.
Today's mitzrayim is the narrow space the
State of Israel finds itself in, and the nar-
row thinking that prevents advancements
in the region.
It is easy to see that Israel is in narrow
straits, with Hezbollah and Syria in the
north, Hamas in the south, a mix in the
West Bank to the east and Iran loom-
ing just over the horizon and stoking
the fire. A peace partner, let alone one
capable of delivering peace, simply doesn't
exist. Most international groups remain
unfriendly, and there is concern about
how well the Obama administration will
be able to balance its close relationship
with Israel with its desire to get closer to
nations sworn to Israel's destruction.
But as the rabbis have taught us, the
narrowness of mitzrayim is not just geo-
graphic and geopolitical, it is internal. It is
in our heads.
We need to fight the narrowness that
says there is no hope and no way out

except perpetual bloodshed. We also have
to battle the narrowness that says if only
we say peace enough times, click our heels
and make the Arabs and the world happy,
will Israel, the ancestral Jewish homeland,
be safe and secure.
The Palestinians, too, exist in their own
mitzrayim, squeezed in on all sides. And
it's not all, or even primarily, Israel's fault.
The real narrowness is in the ideology of
hate, the unwillingness of the Arab nations
to integrate Palestinians instead of keep-
ing them in refugee camps and denying
them citizenship, and the bankruptcy and
corruption of the Palestinian leadership.
It's no wonder that psychological depres-
sion is rampant in Palestinian society.
Because any prospects for peace are
inextricably linked to Palestinian society,
their mitzrayim is ours as Jews. But we
can't deliver them from it. In fact, the more
we try to help, the more our Arab partners
are seen as collaborators and their prog-
ress undermined.
But as we strive to expand our think-
ing, it is ironic that the moral high ground
seems to be with those who focus on the
impossible, or at least not yet possible.
For example, new Israeli Prime Minister

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Benjamin Netanyahu is getting heat
because he wants to concentrate on tan-
gible and practical advancements in rela-
tions with the Palestinians rather than on
a peace process to nowhere. Knowing how
splintered the rivals Hamas and Fatah are
and their record of pocketing concessions
and demanding more, he wants to see
progress now, in the hope that conditions
will change for the better, begetting more
progress later.
We are not concerned that Netanyahu
will miss the peace train, because it's
mostly still at the station and not moving
fast. If the peace-seeking Israeli public felt

differently, he wouldn't have gained the
seats to form the new government. Just
like them, we are no longer intoxicated by
the word "peace" without real progress.
The narrow place where Israel finds
itself is real, but our thinking must be
broad. As we recall the Exodus from
Egypt this Passover as a flight from being
enslaved and confined, we must strive
to free ourselves from old thinking that
constrains our options. While keeping
our eye out for real peace prospects, we
must be creative and bold with how we
can improve lives and alleviate suffering
today. Li

Reality Check

The Stadium Of Memory

I

cannot remember a time when I did
not love baseball.
Despite the steroids and the over-
paid, self-important stars. The sun that
boils your brains on summer days at
Comerica Park. The bloated World Series
coverage that drags games on past mid-
night.
Makes no difference. I look forward to
the start of the season as I do few things
in life. The renewal and sense of possibili-
ties that come only when baseball returns
to Detroit in spring is embedded some-
where in my soul.
It was the first game I could share with
my father. Both in going to Briggs Stadium
and in the hours he spent hitting fly balls
to me on the island of grass formed where
LaSalle and Tuxedo intersect. It seems
to me I spent most of the time running
around aimlessly in desperate little circles
before the trigonometry of the pursuit
became clear.
In late middle age, I miss that dearly.
Breaking back on a fly ball and tracking

it down is the most satisfying
experience I ever had on an ath-
letic field.
My dad was an exceptional
softball player, a powerful hit-
ter and graceful fielder, and I
wasn't bad. Of course, the older
I get, the better I was, but that's
also part of the appeal. Because
so much of the game is played
in the stadium of memory.
Look at film from the '50s
in other sports and you can
see immediately that you are
watching images of another era.
But baseball looks pretty much the same.
Pants a little baggier, maybe, but not all
that different.
So when I remember sitting in the stands
and seeing Ted Williams or the young
Mickey Mantle or the even younger Al
Kaline, there is no visual disconnect. They
looked then as they would look today.
Other major sports also have roots in
the 19th century. Somehow baseball's

seem to go deeper. Its vast
spaces and emphasis on out-
witting rather than overpow-
ering an opponent reflect a
frontier ethos that the others
do not.
After all,"Casey at the Bat"
was written in 1888; before
basketball was invented, foot-
ball had not entirely broken off
from rugby and hockey was a
game for the frozen ponds of
Canada.
So many of the cliches are
true. Hot dogs do taste better at
a ballpark. The fans are more knowledge-
able. Nowhere else do grown men and
women stand up and count off the strikes
in a century-old song by waving their fin-
gers in the air. ("The Victors" doesn't count
because it involves an entire fist.)
To those of us old enough to remem-
ber, the 1968 World Series remains the
measure of every other thrill we ever had
as fans. A few may have come close, but

the sheer emotional release when Mickey
Lolich leaped into Bill Freehan's arms
on that sunny afternoon in St. Louis is
unmatchable.
All over Michigan people shouted in
joy and hugged their children and cried.
I never expect to witness anything like it
again.
Only baseball retains that kind of
grip on people. It is the one game played
without a clock, and in some degree, it
allows us to defeat time as the shadow of
our own lives lengthen from summer to
autumn.
According to local mythology, the Tigers
come through when times are darkest:
During the Great Depression year of 1935
and the season after the deadly riots of
1967.
Boy, do we need them now Let's play
ball.

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aoLcom.

April 9 ' 2009

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