It is hard not to be swept up in the surreal emotions of the moment with Argentina winning the world cup this past week. As a child of Argentine immigrants, who held the sign for Argentina in the parade of nations in 1994 when the world cup was played in North America, the history runs deep. So in a way it was no surprise that I was enthralled, emotional, and overjoyed as the announcer of the game burst into tears as he declared Argentina champion. Yet, it was also shocking. Hadn’t I moved beyond deeply caring about such trivial things as sport?
And my celebration was relatively muted compared to what has taken place around the world. 46 million Argentines flooded the world with parades and songs with tears flowing freely from many. The level of devotion and meaning that the people of Argentina have attributed to the world cup is simply astounding. A video circulated asking, ‘where is Messi’? ‘In all of us’. In a country so divided politically, and economically in shambles, at least for a few days and weeks, joy and unity will reign. What can we make of this? Why is it that in the world of athletics, a diminutive man with nimble feet and eyes behind his head can capture the world so completely? And more importantly, what can we learn from this moving forward?
This question is not really a new question as sports has played an outsized importance in our society for generations already despite the fact that each sport when viewed technically is silly. They nearly all involve moving a ball around to a certain location, with different rules given to how this can be done. Depending on those rules, it will give advantages to different body types and athletic talents. It is all arbitrary and decided upon by a group of people and their decisions will deeply affect who will have an advantage. For example, in my beloved sport of tennis, advantage used to be given to tall servers. The owners of the game agreed that it led to a boring match full of aces. It was decided that the courts should be slowed down and now the advantage would be given to smaller and more nimble players. In any case, it is arbitrary and inherently pointless in the grand scheme of life, but the people that do this effectively are deified in ways that few are.
For something like this to take off as it has done, it must be that it touches a deep chord within all of us that is real and meaningful even if applied to something less so. Sports at the end of the day are contrived circumstances that allow for moments of human greatness to shine. All who watch know that months and years of blood sweat and tears went into the success of these small moments. Tremendous levels of courage and mental fortitude go into these moments in the face of incredible pressures. Ultimately, this truism is what Channukah is all about.
A question arises in what we say in our thanksgiving blessing during the silent prayer throughout chanukah. We thank G-d for the miracles, redemptions, mighty deeds, salvations, and for the wars that he did for our ancestors. Is there an order to how we thank G-d? If there is one, one would think that we would enumerate the small things that G-d did and then get to the big stuff. If so, miracles should come last and wars would come first. After all, I’d prefer a miracle to a war any day. Even if ultimately victorious, wars involve significant loss of life and hardship. If so, why do we thank G-d for the wars last as if that is the greatest type of help. Perhaps, an answer to this question is that the greatest gift G-d gave us is the opportunity to become heroes and to have the joy of conquering and overcoming obstacles. Miracles are fancy, but they leave us out of the equation. But when human beings fight for something deeply, and with G-d’s help accomplish the goal, that is the greatest gratitude we can have since we partially own that victory, and so it creates the most joy (not to be confused that we look to have war for such an opportunity, but in retrospect, we have to appreciate the great joy that does come from overcoming against all odds)
Sports today are our substitute for war. It creates courageous heroes and we appreciate those that conquer both their inner demons and external foes. However, we know that the Greeks also appreciated that aspect of life with their olympics. So what is the difference between Jewish appreciation and the Greek one? There are two differences. Jews understood that human greatness is special and that it originates from a special root that is divine and allows us to overcome challenges with Divine assistance. We don’t really ‘own’ the greatness completely. Secondly, the motivation is not for glory or fame. There is a special joy in the process itself of overcoming obstacles because we taste our soulful greatness when we overcome the limitations of our body.
When human beings achieve greatness, even in the meaningless, it brings us to tears because it resonates within us so deeply. It is inspiring to watch a broken country unite around this concept and try to claim that greatness for themselves as if that player is a real product of everyone. It is heartening to know that it doesn’t take that much to bring us together. There is plenty that can unite us. Unfortunately, we all know that this moment will come and go and likely things will go back to ‘normal’ and this will just be a nostalgic memory. But imagine if we can come together around meaningful things, and go to war against the real inner obstacles of life that we are meant to conquer- our anger, our superficiality, our self-centeredness- then we will all become heroes and the joy will be forever.
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