Jake Tapper is tweeting about Torah with … Lenny Dykstra?
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By David Ian Klein November 24, 2020
In what may be one of Jake Tapper’s Jewiest tweets ever, CNN host Jake Tapper and former Mets and Phillies player Lenny Dykstra got into a discussion of the weekly Torah portion on the social media network.
Just the common occurrence of a former star member of the @Phillies telling me that this week’s parsha is Vayeitzei⁰וַיֵּצֵא ⁰“And [Jacob] Left” https://t.co/6U8LrhHGAT
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 23, 2020
Dykstra’s reference to Jacob was less about the biblical patriarch and more about Phillies starter Jake Arietta. Dykstra probed Tapper, another Jacob, for his opinion on the player as well as on another Phillies starter Nick Pavetta. Tapper responded that he likes them both.
Tapper, a Philadelphia native, is a graduate of a Jewish day school who and tweets and speaks often about things Jewish. Dykstra is not Jewish; he came to Torah study following a federal prison sentence for bankruptcy fraud. According to the Jerusalem Post he learned Torah with a Chabad Rabbi on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
This week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei, tells many of the stories connected to the patriarch Jacob, such as Jacob’s ladder, his marriage to Rachel and Leah and servitude under his father in-law, Laban.
Correction, Nov. 24, 7:45 p.m.: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the crimes for which Lenny Dykstra served time in federal prison.
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