The opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics are all done. The parade of nations, lighting of the torch, and the games are officially open. I’ve always loved the Olympics games, the way so many countries gather in one place for sport, to meet and greet, to show that as a species we can be competitive without being in life and death conflict, that at least for a few weeks people can put aside politics, ideology, and historical baggage to do something fun and inspiring together.
This morning I heard a news story about a unique Olympic team, a team of 29 refugees, who are competing on behalf of 80 million refugees worldwide. This team includes a woman, a judo competitor, who escaped from war ravaged Syria and made it to the Netherlands where she started a new life, continued training, and eventually brought over her husband and family.
In spite of all this inspiration, and all the perspiration about whether there should be a games this year or not, with the looming Covid crisis with the Delta surge here and abroad, the games still represent an ideal, a hoped for state of relationships between countries and people. The Games are neither convenient nor cheap to put on, even without a worldwide Covid problem, and terrorism and politics have impacted the games, just a few examples, in Munich in 1972, and in the Moscow games in 1980, and the LA games in 1984.
So the Games, and the vision they offer, are fragile, and they represent nothing less than a risk that’s taken every couple of years, a risk to the country that commits to put them on, a risk for the athletes who dedicated their lives to try and get a spot on the national teams, a risk to the fans to attend – remember Atlanta 1996, we’re just a few days shy from 25 years since that bombing attack.
But I hope we can agree that the Games are a worthwhile risk, the same way God, and Moses, believe that leading our ancestors over the Jordan to a new life in the Promised Land is a worthwhile risk. The entire Book we’re reading now through the end of summer asks the question of whether the special relationship between God and our people can survive us crossing the Jordan and living settled amongst the many people of the land, and whether, once we’re building farms, planting crops, and tending flocks we will have the same closeness to the Invisible God of the universe we did when we depended on the manna falling from the sky or the miraculous water coming up from the desert ground.
It’s a big risk, especially because so many times since we went free from Egypt we’ve challenged and rebelled, and returned, and then challenged again.
And so we can only see the lessons of these summer Torah readings as God having faith in us, giving us the spiritual and legal tools to keep the fire of our faith and connection burning from one generation to the next.
This way of thinking suggests a question we need to ask ourselves, a question that Olympic athletes undoubtedly ask themselves every day of training, and every day of competition, while others – God, coaches, family, friends, fans may have faith in us, do we have faith in ourselves?
This Shabbat, the first after Tisha B’av is called Shabbat Nachamu, The Shabbat of comfort, and the message is while we may lose faith in ourselves, or struggle, or fall, while hope may be elusive, there is nothing more inspiring at an Olympics, or in life, than the person who gets pushed, or falls, or falls behind, and who nonetheless finds a way to finish the race, and that by opening our heart to reaching out the invisible and ever present Source of Strength in the universe, we may begin to find the will and to rise, as the prophet Isaiah tells us with words that, in my view, speak to our ultimate source of will whether on the playing field or on the pathways of life, “Adonai, God of the Universe, the Creator, never grows faint or weary…God gives strength to the weary, fresh vigor to the spent…Those who trust in Ehyeh, the Source of Being, shall renew their strength as eagles grow new feathers, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not grow faint.”
