Seidemann: Playing for the right team

From the other side of the bench

by David Seidemann

Issue of November 20, 2009/ 3 Cheshvan 5770

When I was a child, I collected baseball cards. In addition to my soda bottle cap collection and my NASA moon rocket, those cards were my prized possession. In order to help me fall asleep at night, I used to try to memorize a player’s move from team to team as recorded on the back of a baseball card. Those players who managed to play on the same team throughout their entire career always impressed me. There weren’t that many back then and there are even fewer today.  In our family’s move from one house to another, the cards somehow disappeared. Like most ballplayers, our lives have taken us to and from many different destinations.

Though I’ve done many things in life, most of the activity has been confined to Columbus, Baltimore, Israel, and New York. I did work for the National Conference of Synagogue Youth for many years and in that capacity traveled this country from Maine to Florida and from New York to California. But all of my travels, and I would suspect the travels of most of you that are reading this column, pale in significance to the travels and story of the following individual.

He was born in Boston and for some reason developed an interest in the Chinese language. A college advisor informed him that if he really wanted to learn Chinese he would have to move to China. From China he moved to Taiwan where, upon his arrival, he was confronted with the stark reality that he had no money and no place to live. He presented himself at a Buddhist monastery and inquired if they had room for him. He was honest with them and told them that while he was interested in studying their religion, he had no intention of becoming a Buddhist monk.

The monks were extremely disciplined. They would rise very early in the morning, pray, and exercise. Their diet consisted of rice which was rationed depending upon how many push-ups the individual could accomplish. Most of his comrades, could perform upwards of 600 push-ups at a time. For that, they were rewarded with an extra bowl of rice. He was not particularly athletic though, while not being able to duplicate their 600 push-up performances, he was able to perform more than your average Jewish boy from Brookline.

It wasn’t too long before the clothes he arrived with had worn out. Wearing the same clothing every day will do that. With trepidation, he approached the leader of the monastery and asked for a change of clothing. Of course, the only clothing available was the clothes worn by the monks. Their clothes soon became his attire. One morning, after completing his prayers, chants, and exercise, he caught a glimpse of his reflection and was startled by what he saw. He looked like a monk, dressed like a monk, and acted like a monk. He approached the head monk and asked him, “Have I become a monk?” Yes, my son,” was the response. “Without even intending to become one of us, you have now become one of us.”

The Chinese and Taiwanese culture that he had become a part of maintained a heavy interest in martial arts. Believe it or not, a lot of the monks and future monks ended up appearing in martial arts movies. The villains in martial art movies made in China and Taiwan are most often Westerners. And so, this blond haired blue-eyed Jewish boy from Boston found his way back to Hong Kong where he played a villain in Chinese martial arts films.

His acting career took him to Japan where he met a stewardess for a Japanese airline who was a devout Christian. Talk about a mixed marriage: we now had a Jewish born Buddhist monk married to a devout Christian. Over the years his wife’s intense practice of Christianity began to get under his skin. It’s not as if he had a problem with Christianity, it’s just that her intense practice of it disturbed him. He wasn’t even sure why it disturbed him, but he felt he needed a break. He somehow believed that the intensity of her practice was related to them living in Japan; he convinced her that they should move to Los Angeles where they could be exposed to other cultures and religions.

Yes, you guessed it; they were in Los Angeles for but a few months, when he happened upon a Jewish outreach organization. One of the leaders of that outreach organization gave him the same advice that his advisor in college had given him years before about the Chinese language. If you want to learn Chinese you really have to move to China. If you want to learn about Judaism you really have to move to Israel. A few months later he was in a yeshiva in Israel, as was his wife. (His marriage ended for reasons having nothing to do with either his return to Judaism or with his Christian wife’s interest in Judaism.)

After his divorce he felt a change of scenery was in order. He moved back to the United States where he remarried someone “more grounded” than a flight attendant. But there was something about the Far East that tickled his fancy. Today, he lives in Shanghai with his new wife and children. He is the CEO of an Israeli company with offices in Shanghai. With great pride he shed his Buddhist garb for what you would see on the streets of Jerusalem or New York. And while he journeyed from “team to team”, he wound up playing for the very same team that he began with, when he was born.

I heard this story over a cup of coffee with this man’s best friend. What struck me most is not the fact of the monk’s return to his roots. What lingers in my mind are the words of the head of the monastery telling the young man that, if you dress like us, eat like us, talk like us, look like us, and act like us, then even if you do not want to be one of us, you are one of us. You are a monk.

We, the Jewish people, have accomplished a great deal after being afforded many opportunities in this country of ours. We have survived pogroms, crusades, the Holocaust and terrorist attacks all over this world. Yet the greatest threat to our existence might be the very success we have realized.

You see, it’s noteworthy to play for the same team from beginning to end. But it’s much more important to be recognized as being a part of your league at all times, even after one’s career has concluded.

David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann & Mermelstein.  He can be reached at (718) 692-1013 and at ds@lawofficesm.com.