Baseball Rules; Rabbi Rules

This year’s World Series, and indeed a number of White Sox games that led them to the World Series, beautifully illustrates a very difficult Jewish concept. In fact, this concept is something I continue to struggle with in my understanding of Yiddishkeit.

There is this interesting concept that “Torah lo bashamayim hi” – the Torah is no longer in Heaven. As illustrated in a fascinating Gemara where Rabbi Eliezer “proves” through miracles and even a Bat Kol, a “voice from Heaven,” that his ruling is correct, the ruling goes in favor of the majority. Why? The Torah is not in Heaven anymore.

But if Rabbi Eliezer was correct, if his ruling was the ruling accepted in Heaven, as proven by the Bat Kol saying that this is so, then how could we actually poskin (rule) in a different way? Why does it matter that the majority didn’t agree, even when the majority is wrong?

Come back to baseball. There were a number of calls made by umpires that were proven through the hi-tech zoom cameras of the TV station to be incorrect. The correct call, the Truth (if you will) was (although perhaps not easily) clearly shown through the video. However, the incorrect call of the umpires stood.

But how could that be, if the video showed that the umpire was wrong? Why didn’t the call get changed to reflect the reality, the Truth?

The answer is that baseball rules give the umpires the sole discretion to decide the proper call(s) for each play. Although we certainly hope that they get each call right, and usually they do, the game isn’t based as much on Truth as much as each umpire’s truth: what they saw. In effect, the CAMERA wasn’t given the ability to decide; the UMPIRE was given the ability to decide, even if that seems to contradict the camera.

Similarly, when Hashem gave the Torah to the Jews, He put the creation of law into the Jews’ hands, and out of His own. Of course, Hashem also gave Moshe directions on how law was to be made, and one of those directions is: the law shall follow the majority. Just like the umpires “lay down the law” in baseball, whether that seems to match reality or not, so too the Rabbis “lay down the law” following the directions given to them by G-d. Just like one could say that the umpires are shlichim (messengers) of the game to enforce the law the game gives them, so too G-d installed the Rabbis as shlichim of law for the Jews, and they are given full discretion to rule according to the laws and rules G-d gave them.