The Jewish Hall of Fame

Because baseball is a team sport, the honoring of individual players poses some complications. Determining the best team each year is obvious--it is the team that wins the last game played in the World Series. In other words, the team championship is decided on the playing field. The winner is undisputed. Sorry, Tiger fans, we came a close second, but the St. Louis Cardinals were the ultimate victors last season.

When it comes to honoring the best individual players, it's a whole different story. Awards, such as the Most Valuable Player, are decided by a vote of sports writers. This subjective approach is bound to lead to disagreement.

More complicated and controversial is the process of electing retired baseball players to the Hall of Fame. Each year the baseball writers of America choose among eligible former players who will join the ranks of baseball's "greatest ever." Some great players have not been chosen, such as Pete Rose because he bet on baseball, or Mark McGwire because of suspicion that his home run production was aided by steroid use. But other great players are simply not chosen because the writers ultimately get to decide "who's in" and "who's out" and human beings, by definition, make errors in judgement.

So I set out to discover if there is a Jewish Hall of Fame, and if so, how does one get elected? In a Chasidic story, we learn that every person should have in his/her pockets two pieces of paper. On one should be written, "The world was created for me (alone)." This seems to imply that each of us is a Jewish Hall of Fame candidate. But before we let this message go to our heads, we are also taught that on the other piece of paper should be written, "I am but dust and ashes." So much for the Hall of Fame. On balance, we realize that each of us is a person with strengths and weaknesses, playing significant roles in this world, but not necessarily achieving Hall of Fame status.

But is there no way to "stand out from the crowd?" In Pirke Avot 2:9, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai asks his students to name the one quality that a human being should strive to achieve. Although he receives many good answers, Rabbi Yochanan declares his favorite to be that of Elazar, who states simply, "The best person in our community is the one with a good heart."

Later in Pirke Avot (4:1), Ben Zoma asks, "Who is a hero?" Answering his own question, Ben Zoma doesn't describe one's physical strength, knowledge or charisma, but rather says that a true hero is "one who is able to overcome his evil desires."

A story by 19th century Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz called If Not Higher gives another perspective on candidates for the Jewish Hall of Fame. In the story no one knows where the rabbi disappears to every Friday morning. The rabbi's secret is that he dresses up in the clothing of a Russian peasant, chops wood and brings it to a poor Jewish woman. Although the Rabbi does great things for the Jewish people on Shabbat and all week long, it is his anonymous unsuspected acts of kindness which merit him a place in heaven, if not higher.

This brings us finally to a passage in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 97b) in which Abaye declares that in each generation there exist exactly 36 tzaddikim (righteous people). You might be familiar with the term lamed vavnik. The Hebrew letters lamed and vav have the numerical value of 36, and a lamed vavnik is therefore a person whom we suspect of being one of the treasured 36.

The answer of course, is that we don't know who they are. They could be any of us. The Jewish Hall of Fame does not consist of the most famous rabbis and synagogue members. The Jewish Hall of Fame is not chosen by the media. Rather, the above stories remind us that the greatest among us are those who achieve greatness through a good heart, inner strength and anonymous acts of kindness.