The best sport

There was little that could get me to synagogue as a kid.  The stagnant prayer in a foreign language and their unending length had little attraction for me.  My sampling was when it was longest, on the High Holidays, so it really didn’t give a good impression.  I’d take frequent breaks in the hallways with equally apathetic preteens and we’d wander around the hallways or venture outside to the park.  There was one thing we were interested in, one thing we didn’t want to miss- the sounding of the shofar.  A few minutes before, word would quickly spread through the hallway that the man with the beard and shiny head had taken out the curved three foot horn and was about to blow it.  Granted, there were speakers in the hallway, which for a Rabbi sermon was good enough, but not for a shofar.  So we raced back in before they’d seal the doors (once the blowing actually started no one was allowed in or out).  And we were not only there to time how long the tekia gedola would be and to witness the shofar blower with the shiny head turn red as a tomato.  We wanted to hear the shofar because even as an immature pre-teen, the shofar was the one thing I could relate to.  Why?

Human beings gravitate to be part of something bigger.  That, I believe, is the foundation for the sports fan, the music fan, and fan of causes.  Whilst in a stadium we experience something beyond our self and become part of a greater unity, part of a team and part of an audience.  Complete strangers are temporarily united under a superficial banner, and despite the absurdity of grown men doing arbitrary actions with a ball, we can’t get enough of it.  We are so invested, that despite the arbitrary rules made up by arbitrary people, these teams can affect our emotions whether they win or lose.  But that is a small price to pay in order to take part, albeit passively, of something greater. 

 I think this same attraction is part of what keep the shofar relevant.  It begins with unity, a smooth blow that rings- tekiya.  Then, a second blow breaks it up into a series of shorts pieces and then a third blow reunites them again at the end. We do this process of putting pieces back together into unities over thirty times on Rosh Hashanah.  The shofar is the message that the goal of life is to take fragments and unite them (including ourselves), and therefore, become part of something bigger   We are made for that. It is one of the most intuitive things that mankind does time and again, if sports is any indication. We relish the chance to make things unite. The problem is that we sell our self short. Sports are a great start, but we could do better.  Rosh Hashanah is when we recognize that there is One unity that is infinitely better than every other, and to unite with that is our ultimate goal.