Swallow your ... (ahem) pride

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“Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.”

- Proverbs 16:19


I am a sports counselor at a Jewish summer camp.

And no, “sports” and “jewish summer camp” are not oxymorons.
We play plenty of sports…
Well… a lot of chess.

Sports with all Jews?
What is it, a camp full of team managers? Just hundreds of kids carrying water jugs and clipboards?
Actually, we’re not training them to be sports stars, but rather, sports agents.
“Let’s do ten jumping jacks and five contract negotiations.”
Forget color wars, we have bidding wars.

Ha ha… that is just awful.

Okay, we got that out of our systems.

Truthfully, we play every sports you can think of.
I was teaching softball today and it was rough.
But I was forced to swallow my pride.

As soon as the kids’ regular counselor signaled the end of the perek (or “period”) I said, “Oh praise Jesus!”

“Jesus? Here? It’s a Jewish summer camp.”
Trying to be funny, I dug deeper. “No, not THAT Jesus. I’m talking about Jesus, the guy who cleans my floors.”

There were a few kids around us, but I was saying it for the amusement of myself and the counselor.

A minute later, when it was just the two of us, he said,
“Dude, ‘Lo mateem.’” In Jewish camp-speak that means “Not appropriate.”
He elaborated. “There were kids around and what you said was kinda racist. Besides, they don’t know you’re joking.”

Now, I didn’t really like this counselor. He was a jock… and not just in terms of a Jewish summer camp (A jewish jock? What, can he field a groundball without dropping his inhaler?).
So I resented this guy. I REALLY didn’t want to admit he was right.
But… we was right.
“Okay, you got a point” I conceded, nodding my head. “You got a point.”

He WAS right… and my Jesus comment was more racist than funny, anyway.

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