“Come on, Seabiscuit”

Kol Nidre 5764

October 5, 2003

 

Introduction

"In 1938, a year of monumental turmoil, the number one newsmaker wasn't Franklin Roosevelt, nor Adolf Hitler. It wasn't even a person. It was an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse, owned by a bicycle repairman turned automobile magnate, trained by a virtually mute mustang-breaker, and ridden by a half-blind failed prizefighter. The racehorse was Seabiscuit."

He was alternately described as being, "boxy, with stumpy legs that wouldn't completely straighten, a short straggly tail, and an ungainly gait." Furthermore, "Seabiscuit was tiny and had bowed legs and the aerodynamics of a duck."

And when I watched the movie, already knowing the results of the race yet to be seen, and when I read the book, having already seen the movie, I still wanted to get up and, very uncharacteristically of me, scream, "Come on, Seabiscuit!"

This summer Ruby and I visited Saratoga, NY, a quaint upper New York State town, just a "bissle mishugah" because of horseracing. There was Seabiscuit memorabilia all over, and I was oblivious. Until I read a review in the New York Times that included the following: "The story is also about the power of kindness, the miracle of healing, and the human and equine ability to rebound time after time." That caught my attention. I saw the movie and read the book midrashically, seeing different levels of meaning and decided that "Seabiscuit" dovetailed with the spirit of the Yamim Noraim. Hurricane Isabel and the following tornados enhanced the lessons we can learn and apply to our lives regardless of when your electricity was restored. As I said on Rosh Hashanah, with or without it, "we never lost our power."

That power is the power inherent in brokenness. It is a power that comes from God. It is the power that was blown into our essence on the sixth day of creation when God blew the ruach Elohim into Adam HaRishon, the first person. It is the koach of redemption obtainable by human effort besides divine grace. "Come on, Seabiscuit," is notonly a cry form the grandstands about a horse running a race. "Come on, Seabiscuit," is a cry from and to the human heart, not to give in, not to quit, not to be faint-hearted, not to yield to despair, but to rise from brokenness to a newwholeness, to triumph, to grow higher, l'aeyla u'l'ayla, from whatever depths we might have sunk. That is the spirit and the power of Yom Kippur.

I.

In the movie and its book, I see seven manifestations of brokenness: 1) America of the Depression, 2) Seabiscuit, 3) Charles Howard the owner, 4) Tom Smith the trainer, 5) Red Pollard and 6) George Wolf the jockeys, and lastly 7) Laura Hillenbrand the author herself.

1.

We have all lived through, heard from our parents and grandparents or studied in school about the Depression and its affect upon the American psyche. It robbed people of their dignity and took away their hope. I remember stories about my maternal grandmother, Anna Leibhoff, a diminutive but powerful woman. I learned about the "evictors"—those who came to throw you out of the apartment take out your belongings and put them on the street, because you couldn't pay the rent. My grandmother used to take the furniture on her back, up the stairs and back into the apartment. That was the Depression in a microcosm. It destroyed the ability to live and robbed you of the capacity to dream. Truly, vast numbers of Americans were broken during that time, the setting of this story. That so many followed this story of this horse is testimony to its power to inspire others to rise from the depths of their circumstances.

2.

Charles Howard had an entrepreneurial spirit and learned to be a bicycle mechanic and race in New York City. Leaving a wife and two children behind to later join him he parlayed 21 cents and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 into success. With skill and daring he become exceedingly rich, a tycoon. Yet in 1926 his 15-year-old son died in a crash while driving one of Charles' old trucks, swerving to avoid a rock. The movie consummately depicts the brokenness of a father, of a family, of a marriage. Such tragedy can bring people to and over the brink, beyond salvation. Charles Howard built a hospital in Willits, California in his son's memory. Yet that alone would not save him. It was the love from a woman, Marcela Zabala, and the love of a horse, Seabiscuit, that ultimately raised him from his brokenness.

3.

Tom Smith was called "Silent Tom" because he spoke so little. He grew up in the West as it was changing beneath him with the great migrations. He learned the art of taming horses for use by the British Calvary, the skill of healing horses from their injuries and illness, and the insight to train them. Nevertheless, by this time he was living in a horse stall eking out a meager income in the depths of the Depression. The scene of his solitude and loneliness starkly depicts the nature of his fortunes. Only one horse, Seabiscuit, healed his brokenness.

4. & 5.

In researching for this sermon I learned how terribly difficult and dangerous it is to be a jockey. The job of being a jockey is so very dangerous unto itself. They must also maintain a low weight with severe implications for health. The pressure is unbelievable, and the methods used cannot be mentioned in this sermon. Red Pollard was tall to be a jockey, and tried many other jobs. He was permanently blinded in his right eye, nearly crushed to death in a horse pile-up, and later was crashed into a barn severely injured, so that he could not be the jockey in the race against War Admiral on November 1, 1938. George Wolf, who did and won, died at the age of 35. In order to be a jockey he did all the terrible things to his body to maintain a low weight while keeping the secret that he had Type I diabetes. Riding Seabiscuit was the redeeming factor in both their lives.

6.

Seabiscuit, I already cited his physical disabilities. The horse had mental wounds caused by too much neglect and too many races. His companions were a dog, a horse, and a monkey. Previous trainers and owners had given up on him. He never ran in the Kentucky Derby, Belmont, or the Preakness. War Admiral was grander, sleeker, and a proven champion. He seemed not to belong on the same field. The strategy of that race is particularly insightful. Pollard told Wolf to allow War Admiral to draw even, so that Seabiscuit could look him in the eye. Then he would gallop away and win the race. Maybe one has to look brokenness, crisis in the eye in order to rise above it.

7.

Laura Hillenbrand has been afflicted with chronic fatigue syndrome, CFS, a disorder marked by physical and mental exhaustion, recurring aches, and fleeting fevers, since 1987 when she was about 19 years old. It took the medical profession many years to truly comprehend this condition. She depicts her journey in a moving article in New Yorker magazine of last July. It is enough to break your heart. She did 150 interviews herself and sometimes wrote in long hand with her eyes closed to stop the vertigo. She meted out a limited store of energy each day. She couldn't look down at the work so the laptop was on top of a stack of books and a device was jerry-rigged to hold documents vertically. The book is 339 pages long, with another 44 pages of acknowledgements and notes. In an interview she said "the day after I turned in the manuscript, my health collapsed. You want so much to defy this illness on your own terms. I hoped I could get away with it, but I couldn't." She went on to say: "I think it is possible to carve out a dignified and nondestructive life…I think it is possible to make a good life…It requires a redefinition of everything, but I think it is possible to do." In the book there is one special passage that only hints at herself: "Man is preoccupied with freedom, yet laden with handicaps. The breadth of his activity and experience is narrowed by the limitations of his relatively weak, sluggish body. The racehorse, by virtue of his awesome physical gifts, freed the jockey from himself…For the jockey; the saddle was a place of unparalleled exhilaration, of transcendence." Laura Hillenbrand transcended her brokenness to write this book.

Summary

All the central characters of Seabiscuit were broken in some way. All of them could have quit on life. "Come on, Seabiscuit" rallied the owner, the trainer, the jockeys, the horse itself, America of the time, and the author with her illness, to rise from brokenness to wholeness, to ascend from despair to faith, to climb from hopelessness totriumphant redemption. The tag line in the movie is so powerful: "Just because someone is a little banged up doesn't mean their whole life is worth throwing away."

There is no one here who can claim not to have been broken at some time in our lives: failures, illness, betrayal, death of a loved ones, loss of a job, a hurricane, or a tornado. "Come on, Seabiscuit" calls to us in our personal histories, in our past and for our future, to run the race and to rise.

II.

To complement this movie and book and deepen this message, I pose several rhetorical questions to answer from our Jewish teachings.

1.

What is our desired condition? Should we be whole or broken?How does God see us?

In the Midrash of Leviticus Rabbah Rabbi Abba ben Yudan says: "All that God has declared to be unclean in animals He has pronounced desirable [kasher] in men. In animals He has declared 'blind or broken or maimed to be unserviceable (Lev.XXII, 22), but in men He has declared the broken and crushed heart to be desirable. R. Alexandri said: If a person uses broken vessels, it is a disgrace to him, but God uses broken vessels, as it is said, 'The Lord is nigh to the broken-hearted'(Ps. XXXIV, 18)."

We learn that God actually prefers something lessthan whole, less than perfect. When we are broken, we are really close to God. In our brokenness, we are God's instruments here on earth. In a complicated Mishna about vessels and impurity, it says that earthenware utensils, "their breaking is their cleansing." The Rabbis add that a broken clay utensil that was purified, could never become impure again. Perhaps we are not destined to be unbroken. Being broken is our real human condition, and only in it, imperfect and broken, can we find the cleansing of our wounds and the healing of our hearts, and the real meaning of life.

2.

In this movie all the seven protagonists rise from their brokenness. Can we?

Here I cite a glorious Midrash from Genesis Rabbah: "There was a man in Sepphoris whose son had died. A heretic sat by his side. R. Jose b. Halafta came to visit him. The heretic saw that he was smiling. He said to him, 'Rabbi, why do you smile?' He replied, 'I trust in the Lord of heaven that the man will see his son again in the world to come.' Then that heretic said, 'Is not his sorrow enough for the man that you should come and sadden him yet more? Can broken sherds be made to cleave again together? Is it not written, 'Thou shalt break them in pieces like a potter's vessel?' (Ps. II, 9). Then R. Jose said, 'Earthen vessels are made by water and perfected by fire; vessels of glass are both made byfire and perfected by fire; the former, if broken, cannot e repaired; the latter, if broken can be repaired.' The heretic said, 'Why?' He replied, 'Because they are made by blowing. If the glass vessel which is made by the blowing of a mortal man can be repaired, how much more the being who is made by the blowing of God.'"

In our faith we are all the handiwork of God. Despite our physical differences, our differences of likes, tastes, and skillswe all derive from God. In a religious and spiritual sense our breath is not just inhaling and exhaling oxygen and CO2. Into and from within us is the breath of God. If the glass could become whole, so can we. We can rise above our weaknesses and our brokenness. That is the message of Yom Kippur and the power of teshuvah, of repentance.

3.

How do we grow from where we are to where we can be?

In "The Essential Kabbalah" by Daniel Matt, he writes that we can be compared to a seed. Its perfection is not in its original form, the closed shell that we plant in the earth. Its perfection comes when the shell is shattered, and then and only then it can grow and reach its perfect configuration. When the shell is broken, the seed can grow. Like the seed planted in the earth, God has planted within us infinite possibilities. They become real not when we think that we are perfect, but when we are broken and strive to rise from that condition.

Conclusion

Yom Kippur is a very powerful day. It is more than fasting and praying all day. Through the liturgy we confront ourselves,who we are or aren't, what we have done or didn't do, and who we can be. It is like the mirror at the front door in which we check ourselves before going out to make sure that everything is in place. Maybe you wish to see Kol Nidre as the starting gate and Neilah as the finish line, in keeping with the motif of this sermon. I see our human condition confronting all types of crisis—of love, of economics, of weather, of health, of wealth, which are prone to break us. It is in our hands to choose our response, to recognize our inherent human limitations and then summon up courage and strength to rise and transcend, to find redemption, peace, and happiness, because we inherently can, because we must.

Ernest Hemingway wrote:

"The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, many are strong in broken places."

And around the backstretch they come. And from the stands you hear the cry:

"Come on, Seabiscuit!"

Amen