I have written a lot over the years about sports. There are a number of reasons for this. One is that I grew up being obsessed by sports and so it is still in my blood. Another is that this blog is devoted to religion and the American religion is sports [or, as some like to call it, "sport"]. My position is that to play sports is healthy for one's body and spirit. We ask every Shabbos Mevarchim for a life of חילוץ עצמות - spreading out those bones. I often walk to shul [it is where I see my friends😊😊] and am offered rides on the way there or back by well meaning Jews. I usually thank them and politely refuse because the walk to and from shul is a GREAT opportunity to move my aging body around a bit. Also, motion creates emotion. Research shows that 15 minutes of vigorous exercise creates the same effect of an anti-depressant [and although I don't suffer from depression, BARUCH HASHEM!!! I definitely need "pick-me-ups"].
Following sports is another thing all together. It is passive and usually a mammoth waste of time. However, some need it as a diversion from the stresses of life, and that also has value.
The problem is when it becomes an Avodah Zara. When it is no longer about having some fun but rather winning and losing, when excellence on the court begins to be an independent value, on par with honesty, loyalty, kindness, compassion etc. etc. When we respect people and put them up on a pedestal because they put a ball in a net a lot of times. By valuing something to which the Torah ascribes no value, we are essentially devaluing the Torah. In G-d's eyes [as He revealed his word to us], having athletic prowess is not something that commands respect or adulation. By giving this respect and adulation to athletes and celebrating their accomplishments on the field, we are disagreeing with Hashem about what is important. That is a very serious offense.
Recently, a religious institution had another ceremony inducting more people into their Sports Hall of Fame. First of all - my brother Ha-Rav Dovid Shlita should be in there at some point [not that he cares one bit]. He was a star basketball player and even signed a contract to play professionally in Israel. Back then he was called "David" and I sometimes slip TERRIBLY and call him that...😊😊
Second, the whole notion of having this hall of fame is reminiscent of the classic -
Second, the whole notion of having this hall of fame is reminiscent of the classic -
"הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ פֶּן תִּנָּקֵשׁ אַחֲרֵיהֶם אַחֲרֵי הִשָּׁמְדָם מִפָּנֶיךָ וּפֶן תִּדְרֹשׁ לֵא-לֹהֵיהֶם לֵאמֹר אֵיכָה יַעַבְדוּ הַגּוֹיִם הָאֵלֶּה אֶת אֱ-לֹהֵיהֶם וְאֶעֱשֶׂה כֵּן גַּם אָנִי."
What are the Goyim doing? LET'S DO IT!!!
What do we need this for? Why not spend the same time and energy according honor to those who really deserve it??
This is an article written a number of years ago by an assimilated Jew:
Jeremy Lin is anomalous in all sorts of ways. He’s a Harvard grad in the N.B.A., an Asian-American man in professional sports. But we shouldn’t neglect the biggest anomaly. He’s a religious person in professional sports.
We’ve become accustomed to the faith-driven athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn’t forget how problematic this is. The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim.
The moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and supremacy. The sports hero tries to perform great deeds in order to win glory and fame. It doesn’t really matter whether he has good intentions. His job is to beat his opponents and avoid the oblivion that goes with defeat.
The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious. (Let’s say he’s a man, though these traits apply to female athletes as well). He is theatrical. He puts himself on display.
He is assertive, proud and intimidating. He makes himself the center of attention when the game is on the line. His identity is built around his prowess. His achievement is measured by how much he can elicit the admiration of other people — the roar of the crowd and the respect of ESPN.
His primary virtue is courage — the ability to withstand pain, remain calm under pressure and rise from nowhere to topple the greats.
This is what we go to sporting events to see. This sporting ethos pervades modern life and shapes how we think about business, academic and political competition.
But there’s no use denying — though many do deny it — that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels. The religious ethos is about redemption, self-abnegation and surrender to God.
Ascent in the sports universe is a straight shot. You set your goal, and you climb toward greatness. But ascent in the religious universe often proceeds by a series of inversions: You have to be willing to lose yourself in order to find yourself; to gain everything you have to be willing to give up everything; the last shall be first; it’s not about you.
For many religious teachers, humility is the primary virtue. You achieve loftiness of spirit by performing the most menial services. (That’s why shepherds are perpetually becoming kings in the Bible.) You achieve your identity through self-effacement. You achieve strength by acknowledging your weaknesses. You lead most boldly when you consider yourself an instrument of a larger cause.
The most perceptive athletes have always tried to wrestle with this conflict. Sports history is littered with odd quotations from people who try to reconcile their love of sport with their religious creed — and fail.
Jeremy Lin has wrestled with this tension quite openly. In a 2010 interview with the Web site Patheos, Lin recalled, “I wanted to do well for myself and my team. How can I possibly give that up and play selflessly for God?”
Lin says in that interview that he has learned not to obsess about stats and championships. He continues, “I’m not working hard and practicing day in and day out so that I can please other people. My audience is God. ... The right way to play is not for others and not for myself, but for God. I still don’t fully understand what that means; I struggle with these things every game, every day. I’m still learning to be selfless and submit myself to God and give up my game to Him.”
The odds are that Lin will never figure it out because the two moral universes are not reconcilable. Our best teacher on these matters is Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the great Jewish theologian. In his essays “The Lonely Man of Faith” and “Majesty and Humility” he argues that people have two natures. First, there is “Adam the First,” the part of us that creates, discovers, competes and is involved in building the world. Then, there is “Adam the Second,” the spiritual individual who is awed and humbled by the universe as a spectator and a worshipper.
Rabbi Soloveitchik plays off the text that humans are products of God’s breath and the dust of the earth, and these two natures have different moral qualities, which he calls the morality of majesty and the morality of humility. They exist in creative tension with each other and the religious person shuttles between them, feeling lonely and slightly out of place in both experiences.
Jeremy Lin is now living this creative contradiction. Much of the anger that arises when religion mixes with sport or with politics comes from people who want to deny that this contradiction exists and who want to live in a world in which there is only one morality, one set of qualities and where everything is easy, untragic and clean. Life and religion are more complicated than that.
