Idols

Idols of Gold (And Silver and Bronze) in the Bird’s Nest Olympic news has been splattered all over the front page of the Dallas Morning News for days. Who hasn’t heard of Nastia Liukin? After all, she is one of our own. But of course, not only Texans have been struck with the strange disease called Olympic Fever. Michael Phelps has instantly become an American idol. And many have stayed up until ungodly hours of the morning to see him in action, barely staggering into work the next day. In China, fans – and just about everyone is a fan – are going crazy over the likes of tennis great Roger Federer and soccer superstars Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho. Russia’s invasion of Georgia almost passed under the radar screen unnoticed. Don’t bother us now, we seem to say, so enamored are we with our Olympic superstars. Does it make any sense? Can we morally justify our fixation on sports heroes? What have they accomplished for the world? Have they made the world a better place? Eradicated poverty? Conquered disease? Served as paragons of virtue? Of morality? Of humility? Yes, they have modeled for us dedication and unswerving commitment to a goal. But is their endeavor really worthy of such adulation? Are their triumphs indeed so important? Some branches of sport are akin to art forms in which the human body is the paint on the canvas, the musical notes wafting through the air. Other branches of sport are less art-form and more tremendous strength delicately and exquisitely channeled. Our physical nature has been brought closer and closer to perfection; the human body has been carried to new levels of coordination, power, and beauty. But even Olympic sport will never penetrate the depths of the human psyche and resonate with the full range of human emotional –intellectual experience as does fine literature or philosophy or theology, and it will never even pretend to heal the world or conquer disease as does scientific technology or medicine. It does little to bring us into contact with the mysterium tremendum of life as does religion, nor uplift our behavior or set forth for us a regimen of proper living as does moral inquiry or the Jewish halacha. So why do we make cultural icons of those who excel in sport’s various permutations? It is a symptom of superficiality; we flee from confronting head on the depth and complexity of life. We are often unwilling to grapple with the richness of God’s creation - whether within ourselves or without. We shy away from the big questions, the ultimate issues. The truth is, we are really afraid to embark upon the process of discovery of what it means to live life to the fullest, instead contenting ourselves with instant, shallow gratification. Our energy and our adoration are misdirected when focused on things that are only skin deep. By honing in on things on the outside, we lose sight of that which is on the inside. And there is more on the inside that most of us will ever know. Man, after all, is much, much more than mere flesh and blood. We have turned means into ends; we have mistaken the vessel for the content. Life is holy, for it sustains the divine image within. The human body is important, but only as an instrument, as a carrier of the soul and in tandem with the ever expanding spectrum of the soul’s full color and texture. Yes it is true than we must stay fit. It is incumbent upon us to protect and nurture the charge placed in our hands by the Creator. It may well be, as Rabbi Abraham Isaac haCohen Kook claims in his Lights of Penitence, that turning to God must begin with tuning the body. But let’s not kid ourselves; we all know that spectator sport has nothing to do with health and fitness. The Beijing 2008 Olympics Games have shown for all to see that in our generation more than ever spectator sport has become the opiate of the masses. And it’s too bad. With every victory we lose. We move further and further away from our true selves. Perhaps if we would arouse ourselves from our stupor and avert our glance a bit from the games, we could begin to discover more of the authentic texture and grandeur of life.