There’s a feel-good story on ESPN right now entitled “A state championship or his Jewish faith? The agonizing choice of a young Jewish runner.” The story documents Oliver Ferber’s decision regarding whether or not to run in the state championship. The happy ending to the story is that eventually, the date of the race was changed in an upcoming year from a Saturday to a Sunday. But I think there’s something far more insidious at play- and that’s a Jewish day school that claims to be pluralistic but isn’t, and that in fact undermines people’s Jewish choices.
Ferber was raised with a more traditional understanding of the Sabbath, but chose to become more observant. This led to a conflict when his Jewish day school’s team was slated to compete in the state championship. Running on the Sabbath for sport/ as a form of exercise is considered forbidden according to halakha [Jewish law], specifically as understood within the Orthodox movement.
A truly pluralistic Jewish school, one that embraced all forms of Judaism- Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and various observances that did not fit neatly within a particular denomination- would have understood that Oliver could not run. They would have supported his choice, applauded his ability to live Judaism according to his values, and made sure his teammates did the same.
Instead, the school did everything possible to undermine this young man’s decision.
Here are some quotes from the article:
His teammates formed a new group chat without him -- for the "state racers" -- and when Oliver suggested he'd still come to the race support the others, one of his friends told him, perhaps only half-jokingly, "If you're not going to race, don't show up. No one wants to see your face."
Imagine this occurring within context of someone else’s religious practice. Imagine if there were some kind of culinary festival at the school (that required cooking and tasting/ eating), and a Muslim said they couldn’t participate because of Ramadan. If that person was excluded on social media, with a separate chat made for the “Food Eaters,” and then told not to even attend school that day, the school would see that as bullying and would take steps to reprimand the students. It doesn’t seem like that occurred here.
And then there’s the coach himself.
COACH, who talked about the issue countless times with Oliver, wanted to be clear just how much Oliver meant to the team's success. So, in one meeting, COACH compared all the Jewish day school’s runners' times to those of their biggest rival, demonstrating -- with raw numbers -- how Oliver's absence would almost certainly ruin the team's chance to win.
This is shame and guilt based education, an obvious no-no for *anyone* who knows *anything* about teaching. If you respect someone’s religious practice, you do not try to shame or guilt them into violating it, even if there’s a chance your high school team will lose in a competition. Imagine if this went the other way. Imagine if I tried to shame and guilt a Muslim student into eating pork at my school’s culinary festival because the team would only earn points if everyone participated and demonstrated “openness to experience,” and by this Muslim student sitting it out and claiming they could only eat halal meat they were “ruining it for the team.”
This would never fly. And people who actually understand halakha as walking with God and therefore inviolate comprehend that. The same way a child who is allergic to peanuts cannot eat peanuts, or someone with celiac disease cannot eat gluten, a devout Muslim cannot eat pork, and a devout Jew who practices Orthodox halakhic observance of Shabbat cannot break the Sabbath [unless there is danger to life.] There would be no talk of “making sacrifices for the good of the team” for the peanut-allergic child in an effort to get them to eat peanuts, and there should not be such talk when it comes to someone following halakha.
Oliver did sit out his team’s race, and they won without him. He and his coach petitioned to have the date of the race changed the following year, and they were successful.
But that’s not the big takeaway from this story. The takeaway is that pluralism needs to actually be pluralistic, and that means including Orthodox observance- values that are more stringent than others find comfortable.
The fact that one may not understand how halakha works in Orthodoxy, or one may know an Orthodox person who finds racing on Shabbat to be “perfectly fine” notwithstanding, there is a strong body of rabbinic literature and practice that would indicate this is not fine. And a truly pluralistic school would take this moment to embrace this young man, assure him his decision was acceptable, urge his teammates to support him, and really uphold the values of pluralism.
But this student succeeded despite his educational environment, not because of it, and there’s room for improvement based on that. There’s room and opportunity for pluralistic schools to reexamine themselves and consider how they can be more welcoming to members of their community who identify as Orthodox or who are more stringent than they find comfortable. Pluralism means accommodating everyone, not only those who are more to the left. This article is a good reminder of the work that needs to be done.
(Oliver Ferber pictured above.)