High Holy Days -- Take Two

Like many Americans, I grew up in a town that was quite homogeneous in religion and culture. And like many Americans, my perspective widened in college – especially, for me, in graduate school, where I became part of a diverse group of students from many nations. I witnessed my Saudi friends observing Ramadan, my normally reserved German friends from Aachen and Bonn indulging in costumed wildness at Karneval time, my Japanese friends enjoying the distinctive cuisine associated with their celebrations.

I liked the openness with which people not only respected each other's traditions, but almost invariably welcomed each other to join in those traditions as best they could. I wonder why we have such trouble carrying that spirit over into "real life."

And I came to understand that each holiday is a distinctive, subtle blending of religious impulses with cultural and national traditions, some ancient, some modern.

So it’s in that spirit, I think, that we created what you might consider a new “holiday.” You see, it was Indiana University’s undefeated championship basketball season in 1975-76, and it was fascinating to witness how the contagious enthusiasm over the Hurryin’ Hoosiers brought people together, whatever their backgrounds, and changed all our perspectives.

I’m confident that many of those friends, some of whom remained in this country and others who returned home, still observe the NCAA tournament as, if not high holy days, at least a multi-cultural form of what the Germans call “Tolle Tage” – and we might loosely translate as “March Madness.”