I wish I hadn’t scrolled down.

By now, you have probably heard about Robert M. Beren Academy’s Basketball team.  The Jewish high school team that refused to play state semi final and championship games on Shabbat. In short, without doing justice to the whole story, this Dallas school is a member of Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools league. The team made it to the state semi finals that were scheduled to be played on Shabbat. The league refused to reschedule in order to accommodate and eventually some students and parents filed a law suit. Bottom line the games were re scheduled. Again, I am not doing justice to the story in this space. There are many details, and room for much discussion as to what and who were right and wrong. What shook me was not the story itself, but some reactions that I came across.

This morning, knowing that the championship game was to be played last night, I had some interest and wanted to see who won. I went to a popular news and sports website and lo and behold a headline “Jewish Schools Season Comes to an End.”     The team had lost. The article I read was well written and told an unbiased account of the whole story. I wished I had stopped there.

You see, I never read the comments on any internet story. I have always felt that most idiots save the most intelligent things they have to say for a bumper sticker on the back of their car. The rest post their “wisdom” as comments on the bottom of internet stories. Today I was a sucker. I bit and scrolled down to see what the world had to say. Here is some of what I read”

“Final Score Means—– Christians “1” —- Synagogue of Satan “0””

“Why all of the BULL;  is this the first time something like has happen.

And beside this world of ours is full of changes to satisfy other People.

We have had schools remove mascots,  Flags and names,  so how is playing on Friday such a bad thing?

I thought just maybe someone did not like their little Kippah”

“Religious freedom?  WRONG!  It’s imposing their religious beliefs on others.  True religious freedom in this case would be to forgo a game in favor of a supposedly sacred ritual, not being compelled by law to play the game.  If other people must rearrange their schedule to meet your religious beliefs then I belong to the Winners Religion.  Our creed: we must always win.  If you don’t accommodate by losing, I will file a religious discrimination lawsuit.  Makes as much sense as these egotistical nits.”

“In life you have to make choices. Who cares about your stupid religion. Play the game.

Cry me a river”

I hope these just are the views of a few fools with too much time on their hands. But, for some reason it still hurts. We are privileged to live in America and are blessed to have the right to freely practice our religion. That doesn’t mean that all of our fellow Americans are so happy about it. Should we care? Just pondering. Please let me know what you think.

P.S.  If you do comment, I won’t group you with the group of idiots I wrote of before!