“So, Rabbi, does this prove that God does not exist?”
It had been a major humiliation. A rabbi’s football team massacred 9-2.
Then again, it was against ‘Spurs Legends’ – a team of former premier league Spurs players. It could have been much worse. In fact, it probably would have been had they not been confused by the fact that this was probably the first time in their lives that fans screaming ‘Yid army’ weren’t cheering for them!
As we trudged off the pitch, I was struggling with admitting to myself that perhaps my goalkeeping wasn’t at a professional level after all, I heard that deep philosophical question: Did our defeat show that God did not watch over His boys on earth after all?
“Of course not,” I replied, “All it proves is how much God loves Spurs!”
He laughed and walked away. That was the easy part.
But I had a deep question of my own. How had they managed to pull off such a large victory? Yes, they had all once been great players. But their youngest was in his high 40s, some were in their 60s! Some of the rabbis were super-talented. Man for man we had often been able to match them, tackle them, or get a solid run past a few of the Spurs. Yet their victory had seemed nearly effortless, the proverbial piece of cake.
The more I thought about it the more I realised that the secret to their success was that through years of practice, their positioning was superb. They simply didn’t have to run very much. The ball was being passed from player to player until they saw the break through, snuck it through our last line of defence and as easy as can be put the ball in the back of the net.
Their years of training in younger life had meant that they were simply unbeatable even when they were no longer able to run like the athletes they had once been.
Is this perhaps a metaphor for life?
While we are young we need to put ourselves in the strongest positions for when we are older. Later in life we want to run homes, build families, lead meaningful lives. But the ability to do so depends on the level of training we undergo when we are young.
Have we trained ourselves to focus on gratitude, rather than moaning? Have we trained ourselves to be givers rather than takers? Have we trained ourselves to ask what is meaningful over what instantly gratifies? To pursue what is right even when it isn’t popular?
In the game of life these skills can’t simply be picked up. They must be honed and developed over years. Having raw talent, energy and enthusiasm is not enough. They are highly refined instincts. For the footballer it is to know where to be, to instinctively know where to play the ball.
And so as I walked off the pitch I realised that I ought to deepen that training by asking myself the sort of questions lots of people wait far too long to start asking: What is important to me? And what would I like to work on now before it’s too late to change? These are questions that Jews are meant to ask every year as we approach Rosh Hashana. Face to face with my footballing lesson, they carried a new sense of urgency. They are the basis of our training, and it can set us up for excellence in life.
Judaism, like football, is full of rules. Like football, playing by those rules is immensely rewarding. Like football, the life it wants us to lead is one that requires lots of training, lots of working on ourselves, and lots of effort. Like football, once trained, there is a lifetime of enjoyment to be had.
Set a playbook that I can run with my family when there is less petrol in the tank and we're huffing and puffing when we slice the challah at the Shabbat table. Set in motion our game plan for life so that when challenges come our way we know how to get past the obstacles that are thrown our way.
If we start planning our strategy now then I'm sure we will win as brilliantly as the Spurs Legends, even more importantly, we will become legends ourselves.
So I guess perhaps G-d didn’t just love His Yid army. What He taught me in our defeat was something far more precious than footballing victory. I learned a life lesson more deeply than I’d learned it before. And that, I guess, is a real victory.
