“Losing means that you at least were in the race,”
about himself, not Jews, said Robert Dole.
We never would have lost the race if we had never run in it.
The race between the Christians and the Jews
is one I’m sorely sorry that the Jews would lose.
Perhaps the most important reason that we didn’t win it
is that to win was not our Jewish goal,
but it could be! Front runners tend to lose their place.
Religion is a relay race which Jews
love like good sports to run in, though they lose.
I think this is because it’s one
we generally choose to run,
even if we’re less believers
than Hail Mary’d wide receivers,
with a believer’s black hat on
our heads, which we’re inclined to bend.
This surely is why we Jews tend,
while on the track, to drop the baton.
Robert Dole framed his crushing defeat by President George H.W. Bush by writing in his memoir:
“Losing means that at least you were in the race. “It means that when the whistle sounded, life did not find you watching from the sidelines.”
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
