A Jewish Guide to Sports

As I write this, there are still many runners in the Jerusalem Marathon pounding down the street outside our apartment, accompanied by pulsating music since about 6:30 AM (“Gooooood Morning, Jeruuuusalem”). While some in the religious community might look down upon both the idea of a marathon in Jerusalem and the runners themselves, quoting the idea that we say when we complete our study of a significant text: “We run and they run – we run towards eternal life and they run towards destruction”, I disagree.  While this metaphor refers to those who waste their time on foolishness and ungodly pursuits, the running that we’ve seen today is quite different and emphasizes the idea that we can find value in basically everything in this world. We also find many positive descriptions of running in the Bible and rabbinical texts, including 99-year old Avraham running to prepare food for his angelic guests, the royal runners running to alert the Persian empire that the Jews could defend themselves in the Purim story and Jacob’s son Naftali running to Egypt from Hevron to procure the sale deed of the Cave of the Partriarchs (there are more examples).

Our mission in life is to sanctify our day-to-day lives, infusing sanctity in the mundane.  Running, and sports in general, give us a great opportunity to not only strengthen ourselves on a physical level, but also on a spiritual level as beyond providing breaks from our daily rigours, they teach us to expand our limits and potential, pushing us to reach higher levels in all aspects of our life.  This is all in addition to fulfilling the Torah’s mandate to take care of ourselves, which allows us to serve others and God on the highest levels.

On this note, especially for non-Americans who do not follow college basketball, I want to highlight the final games this weekend of the NCAA college basketball tournament, one of the most popular events in America with tens of millions of people actively following March Madness, participating in various betting pools and rooting for their favourite teams.  In addition to Yeshiva University, led by their star Zevi Samet who uses his great talents to sanctify God, making it to the Division 3 NCAA tournament again this year, the Final Four colleges still playing for the Division 1 championship, Auburn, Duke, Florida and Houston, all have a very strong Jewish or Israeli connection.  Auburn, Duke and Florida are led by three Jewish coaches, two of whom, Jon Scheyer and Todd Golden played in Israel, where the latter was coached in the Maccabiah by Auburn coach Bruce Pearl (Scheyer was the last USA Maccabiah coach).  One of the stars for Houston is Israeli born Emmanuel Sharp, son of Derrick Sharp, one of Maccabi Tel Aviv‘s legendary players. While all of them have been strong representatives for Israel, speaking with pride about Judaism and their Israel connections, Bruce Pearl really stands out as he not only brought his top-ranked basketball team to Israel in 2022 but he speaks passionately about Israel in interviews that are broadcast to millions of people who may not be so aware of the situation in Israel, usually with two Israeli flags in the background.  You can see three beautiful examples here where he speaks so beautifully about his Judaism, Israel and the hostages.  Trigger warning-may bring tears to your eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZRsiCxCIB8; https://www.instagram.com/athletes4israelorg/reel/DH211aGtTsl/; and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9KZm0YMWow).

As Coach Pearl expressed with great faith, God is always speaking with us and giving us opportunities to bring positivity to the world.  The Book of Proverbs teaches us that we should know God in all our ways, so while some of us may be great scholars, others can both find and bring God into this world through a plethora of ways.  We thus have an opportunity to sanctify God and everything that we do in our daily work, as well as in our leisure and recreational activities. Let’s keep that in mind whether we’re running, playing basketball or just walking to the store, as we are God’s permanent ambassadors.  And this weekend at least, all Jews and Israelis should emerge victorious whichever of the Final Four teams wins.