05/13/2024
food for thought:
Here is a message from a friend.
I know it’s a bit long, but worthwhile reading.
WE HAVE A GAME TO WIN
Since the name of the Parshah this week is Kedoshim - "You shall be holy" - let us understand the meaning of holiness.
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Ever been to a baseball game? No? Well, let me tell you two interesting things about ballgames.
1. A ballgame features about 40,000 people gathered around 18 people playing ball, watching every move, every play, and hanging on to every moment.
2. Yet the players are professionals, and therefore, no matter how loudly you holler at them, taunt them, or critique their performance, they will utterly ignore you, most of the time. They are way too focused on the matter at hand: they have a game to win.
So though the stadium may be filled with 30,018 people, 18 of them are totally disconnected from the other 30,000. They're on a different level, in a hyper-focused dimension, oblivious to the noise around them. The players are in their zone and the 30,000 spectators are outside the zone.
In a sporty kind of way, the players are holy.
This is because at its essence, the word holy means separate, uncommon, exclusive, transcending the environment. In that sense, ball players who are there but not really there are quite holy. The spectators are left to cheer, to boo, to support, to oppose, to adore, to disparage, to love or to hate.
Until the end of the game, the players won't notice either way.
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Planet Earth is a giant stadium, covering about 197 million square miles. In the center of the stadium, in a space that is 0.004% of the world's surface - is the playing field. Israel.
Seven billion spectators are gathered in the stadium, riveted and unable to look away as the players do their thing. The players are a tiny group, .0214% of the world's population. The Jewish People.
The spectators can get rowdy. They cheer, they boo, they support, they oppose, they adore, they disparage, they love or they hate.
And lately, it's been a hostile crowd. Just as at the ballgame, the most drunk, least educated fans are the ones who make the most noise and spew the most abuse at the players.
But unlike at the ballgame, the players in this game seem to notice and hear the abuse, and seem to turn to respond to every insult and every epithet!
When the spectators holler their critique, telling the players to play it this way or that way, the players are listening and responding!
When fools are shouting about the players and their families and their mothers and their appearances and their nationalities - the players are getting offended!
Sometimes, the players even huddle up together and whisper and shake their heads in dismay at the unfair heckling and jeering...
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Folks! We have a game to win.
We need to get our holy on.
Like a great coach prepping his team before a must-win game, G-d tells us, "Be holy. I am holy, you be holy too."
Focus.
Block out the noise.
Security is standing by.
You win the game.
