The Olympic (Jewish) Spirit

 

Jews and athletic achievement don’t naturally go together.

In the 1980 comedy Airplane, a stewardess carrying an armful of magazines asks an elderly passenger if she’d like something to read. “Do you have something light?” asks the lady. Thumbing through her bundle of magazines, the flight attendant picks out something that might work. “How about this leaflet? Famous Jewish Sports Legends.”

With the Summer Olympics getting underway in Paris this weekend, it is an appropriate time to seek out some spirituality within the sporting world. The games continue to create a sense of wonder and fascination even among non-sports fans. They’re a big deal – especially for the athletes who train rigorously. While not as much of a fan as I used to be, I still like to check in on some sports and watch the medial standings in the hopes that USA remains number one. In recent years, there is the extra anticipation that Israel might medal.

Judaism is not known for its embrace of competitive sports. While the Torah requires us to take care of ourselves physically and classical Jewish sources reference exercise and sport, the world of competitive sports is viewed warily as it can turn into a distraction from living Jewishly.

The greater the popularity of sports, the more wary some rabbis became.

In the 1920s, soccer clubs began to gain prominence in Israel. This led to discussion in Torah circles as to the propriety of games being played on Shabbat. What about being a spectator? At the time, two schools of thought (as always) emerged.

Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld (1848-1932) was the Rabbi of the “Old Yishuv” of Jerusalem, what today we would call the Ultra-Orthodox community. He was opposed to the soccer phenomenon. Not only was it forbidden to attend games on Shabbat, but he also said it was forbidden to play soccer altogether. Last year, Rabbi Sonnenfeld’s letter on the subject was auctioned off for $2,000. In it, he wrote, “With the power of Torah, we hereby announce that all who are involved with soccer games, especially on Shabbat, remove themselves from the Jewish people, just like all the heretics and apostates.”

Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook took a very different approach and even referred to sport as a davar she-bi’kedusha, a holy activity. It is not that Rav Kook was more permissive when it came to encouraging competitive sports, and he was very clear about the concerns for Shabbat and other possible violations of Jewish law. Rav Kook, though, appreciated there being a deeper way to look at sports and physical activity, and he was attacked by the traditionalists for his views.

Rabbi David Samson and Tzvi Fishman quote a number of Rav Kook’s teachings on athletics in their book, The Art of T’shuva. Rav Kook, in a hallmark of his religious philosophy of synthesis, tries to see disparate ideas and activities as complementing each other and necessary for the times.

Engagement in more physical activity by some Jews is a welcome development that corrects the past:

“Our physical demand is great. We need a healthy body. Through our intense preoccupation with spirituality, we forgot the holiness of the body. We neglected bodily health and strength. We forgot that we have holy flesh, no less than our holy spirit. We abandoned practical life, and negated our physical senses, and that which is connected to the tangible physical reality, out of a fallen fear, due to a lack of faith in the holiness of the Land.”

Physical activity can be a way to add Godliness to the world:

“When young people engage in sport to strengthen their physical capabilities and morale for the sake of increasing the overall strength of the nation, this holy endeavor raises the Divine Presence ever higher, just as it is exalted by the songs and praises sung by David, King of Israel, in the Book of Psalms.”

Rav Kook even sees a need for a teshuvah of the body to accompany the spiritual repentance for our misdeeds.

“All of our teshuvah will only succeed if it will be, along with its spiritual splendor, also a physical teshuvah which produces healthy blood, healthy flesh, firm, mighty bodies, and a flaming spirit spreading over powerful muscles."

When we engage in sports – or watch the Olympics, we should be mindful of the heart and soul of the role that a strong body plays in complementing a powerful spirit.

There is another element to the Jewish spirit of the Olympics.

When Jews or Team Israel competes internationally, it’s an opportunity for us to feel national pride. In the spirit of Rav Kook, we can argue that anything which instills and strengthens our connection with our nation or fellow Jews is very positive. In a world in which more and more people are disturbingly vocal and violent about how terrible Israel and Jews are, Jewish Olympians represent much more than accomplishment in sport. They are an embodiment of “Am Yisrael chai!”

Here's to Israelis making the podium!