Show me the money! Even on Shabbat - Haaretz

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Sat., September 01, 2007 Elul 18, 5767

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Last update - 03:01 01/09/2007

Show me the money! Even on Shabbat

By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Jewish World Correspondent

I don't know how many readers have been following the travails of Israel's under-21 football coach, Guy Levi, so here's a quick summary.

Maccabi Tel Aviv fired its last coach, Eli Cohen after only two matches this season and is now offering the job to Levi. But the Israel Football Association is reluctant to release Levi whose contract has another year to run.

If Levi decides to leave anyway, he will have to suffer various penalties such as being banned from coaching a national team in the future. But apparently (please insert the story from Wednesday morning here) he's already made his decision. He's not going to coach Maccabi for the hefty salary, nor for the professional advancement, no he's jumping ship on the orders of his rabbi.

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Levi, apparently like many other successful footballers and businessmen, consults with Rabbi Yishayahu Pinto from Ashdod before any major decision. Now Levi isn't the first secular figure to act upon the directions of a mystical religious figure, but am I the only one who finds Pinto?s advice in this case incongruous?

I mean as an Orthodox rabbi you would expect Pinto to make this simple calculation; as coach of the under-21 squad, Levi plays only about a dozen or so matches a year, and those are usually during the week. But with Maccabi Tel Aviv he will play at least five times that number of games, many of them on Shabbat.

Surely Pinto should be interested in his follower being involved in less desecration of Shabbat, I asked myself reading the report this morning. But further down, it said that Pinto had set out two conditions before Levi accepted Maccabi's offer. Here it is I thought, the Rabbi is going to transform Israeli football by forcing one of its most popular teams to keep Shabbat. But I was wrong; Pinto's conditions were that Levi's salary be doubled and he gets a contract for at least two seasons.

Tel Aviv said yes to both.

I used to be a bit of an expert on Israeli rabbis but Rabbi Pinto has only recently risen to prominence, so I really have no idea how useful his spiritual guidance is. But one thing for sure, his business advice can't be faulted. Perhaps he should change his title to Sports Super-Agent.

Previous entries:
August 29, 2007: Not all survivors are angels
August 23, 2007: Would Anne Frank even have wanted German money?
August 21, 2007: The truth about the Satmar 'victory'
August 17, 2007: A few observations on the richest Jew on the planet
August 12, 2007: Fuchs isn't the only 'bastard'
August 10, 2007: Too tired to blog, but...
August 8, 2007: 'You bet I'm going on this march'
August 7, 2007: Training for the war that won't be
August 6, 2007: 'The real change is that we're training at all'
August 5, 2007: Olmert's own heritage is no excuse

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