November 29, 2025
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Vayetzei
It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over
November 29, 2025 – 9 Kislev 5786
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
In the festive spirit of Thanksgiving weekend, let me start with two trivial pursuit questions. Who famously said “It ain’t over till it’s over”? And what was the context for this observation?
Answer: It was Yogi Berra who said: “It ain’t over till it’s over.” And he said it in 1973 when he was managing the underachieving New York Mets. Their season had been a long slog. They could not win consistently. After one particularly dispiriting defeat, reporters asked Yogi Berra if their playoff hopes were finished. That’s when he answered, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” His words would prove to be prophetic.
For the 1973 Mets, it was not over. The Mets rallied late in the season, they ended up making it all the way to the World Series, which they lost in 7 games. The 73 Mets emerged from their long slog to embody their manager’s wisdom: “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
Long slogs are not limited to baseball teams.
I recently have been thinking about the long slog a writer of fiction named Virginia Evans who wrote eight books that never got published. She poured all her energy into writing eight novels. And eight times the answer of the universe was no.
Virginia Evans started to write her ninth novel, but she was so shaken by her history of rejection that she considered abandoning her dreams of becoming a writer—and applying to law school instead.
What are our long slogs? What is our ninth try?
That is the context for our father Jacob’s dream this morning. Running away from home, leaving all that he knows, all by himself, sleeping in nature with his head on a rock, Jacob dreams of a ladder connecting heaven and earth. But it’s not an empty ladder. Rather, there are angels of God, malachei Elohim, coming up and down the ladder. Why the angels?
Jacob’s dream reminds us that we cannot get from earth to heaven by ourselves. We cannot get from where we are to where we want to be by ourselves. We need an angel of God who is a human being who takes the time to see us, to care about us, to bring out the best in us.
For Virginia Evans trying to write a ninth novel after her first eight did not get published, one such angel made all the difference. Hundreds of literary agents ignored or rejected Virginia Evans. But one agent, Hilary McMahon, not only said yes. She said the magic words: “You have what it takes.”
Virginia Evans was able to believe in herself again because Hilary McMahon believed in her. As a result, she was able to bring into being her ninth novel—and the first one to get published, The Correspondent.
Let me tell you about a miracle that I observed with my own eyes recently in the Gann Chapel. We were doing a book group about The Correspondent. There were110 people in Gann that evening. My first question to the group was: how many of you absolutely loved this book? Every hand shot up. To get 110 Temple members to agree on anything, that is a miracle. What were all those Temple members responding to? For that matter, this novel has been published and republished 14 times. Book stores cannot keep it on the shelves. What are all these readers responding to?
This book is about how, despite it all, a love of life can help us keep living. The protagonist, Sybil Van Antwerp, is 73 years old, and she has lots of problems. She is losing her vision. She is divorced. She lives alone. She had three children. One of them passed away as a child in a tragic accident. She has a son with whom she has an okay relationship and a daughter from whom she is estranged. She has grandchildren whom she seldom sees. She has a lot of regrets. She is retired and spends most of her days home alone. Her lifeline to the outside world are the letters she writes and the letters she receives.
Her very brokenness makes her real and relatable. Her very brokenness allows readers to see themselves in her struggles.
And yet, what Yogi Berra said about the 73 Mets was true for Sybil at the age of 73. It ain’t over till it’s over. Despite it all, Sybil emerges from her long slog to build a final chapter of healing and hope. Just like her creator, the author Virginia Evans, emerged from her long slog to write a beautiful book that inspires all who read it. Virginia Evans took all the pain and doubt of her wilderness years and channeled it into a book that tells the story of a flawed but relatable person transcending her pain and doubt.
Which raises the question: When Yogi Berra says “It ain’t over till it’s over,” what is it? What is he referring to? Our service this morning speaks to what it is. Today we are celebrating so much life.
We get to welcome Annie into the covenant of God and the Jewish people. Her parents Ben and Melanie get to welcome their daughter, her grandparents Risa and Sherri get to welcome their granddaughter, her brother Bobby gets to welcome his sister. Truly life’s greatest blessing.
This is Joelle’s Bat Mitzvah.
This is the auf ruf of our sons Sam and Josh.
So I want to say, on a morning of such deep joy and blessing, that when Yogi Berra says “It ain’t over till it’s over,” what he means, at the deepest level, is life itself. Life ain’t over till it’s over. All of us have had our seasons of pain. Our slog has been long. Our progress has been slow. Our losses have been real. We wondered and worried whether we would ever emerge from this hard chapter. Yogi Berra’s teaching means that so long as we draw breath, so long as we are alive, we can look forward to better days.
Sam and Josh, your Saba, Rabbi Arnold Goodman, was widowed late in life. For 66 years, he had been a unit of two. He got married to his bride Rae when he was 21, he was widowed at 87. How to start life at the age of 87 as a widower? And yet, life ain’t over till it’s over. He found the deepest joy even in the presence of his greatest loss. He found joy in being with his family in Jerusalem and living in Israel. He found joy in doing weekly study sessions with his grandchildren. After minyan one day last week, a friend came by and showed me a note she carried in her purse. On that note were written the words of a teaching she finds so powerful that she literally carries it with her wherever she goes: don’t let what you have lost get in the way of what you still have left. Your Saba got that memo.
Joelle, your grandmother Rita and late grandfather Herb opened this synagogue every weekday before 6:00 am for years and years. They would work with the rest of the kitchen crew to prepare breakfast. Then they would sit in their seats at minyan by 7:00 am, day after day, week after week, for years. They were the rock of Gibraltar. They were there every morning in all kinds of weather. The only days I could ever remember Rita not being there were Fridays, when she would skip out on minyan to get her hair done, and would then spend the day with you. She loved spending the day with you. Friday was Joelle time.
And then your grandfather Herb got sick, and it was a long slog, and still she came to morning minyan every day. Strong. Stoical. Full of life.
Then your grandfather passed, and still she came to morning minyan every day, with her children beside her. The same seats every day. Strong. Stoical. Full of life. They just finished saying Kaddish for Herb a few weeks ago. At the end of all this intensity, all this emotion, all this pathos, all this loss, all this Kaddish, at the end of it all, is all this joy: this splendid morning of your Bat Mitzvah Joelle.
There is a psalm that channels the wisdom of Yogi Berra. It is so important we say it every morning. Herbie said it till his last day. Now Rita and the rest of the morning minyan continue to start our minyan every morning with these words from psalm 30. Ba’erev yalin bechi, at night we weep. Night is long. Night is cold. Night is dark. At night, we worry and weep. V’laboker rinah, but morning will come, and when morning comes, joy will come too.
Where there is life, there is hope.
Shabbat shalom.