With all due respect to Forrest Gump, life is like a… football game; a Ravens game to be exact.
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler was one of the leading Jewish thinkers of the 20th century. His lectures were transcribed and translated in a collection of books known as Strive for Truth. In the first volume of this wonderful collection of deep thought, he coins a term called, Nekudas Habechira, the point of free will. The analogy he uses to explain Nekudas Habechira is trench warfare, but had he lived in Baltimore in 2023 (24?), I have no doubt he would have used a Ravens game as an even better analogy.*
Imagine for a moment you were playing quarterback in the NFL. You see these huge 325-pound defensive linemen getting into position. They are ready to pounce on you. They snap the ball, you catch it. What do you do next?
I know what I would do. I would kneel. I would kneel on every play. G-d knows, I will break all my bones and likely die under a single tackle.
If there were fans at the game, they would be pretty annoyed. Annoyed that I was playing quarterback, but also annoyed that I wasn’t even trying to move the ball forward. I would try to explain to the fans that it is so much easier to just stay put and not move forward. And they would kindly and politely tell me to go, fill in the blank, because that is not the point of the game. The point of the game is to move forward, not stay still.
In life, explains Rabbi Dessler, it is a lot easier to stand still, to coast on the accomplishments of our past, our upbringing, or our nature. But that is the equivalent of kneeling on every single play. The goal of life is to face the defensive line, a scary defensive line, and then move forward.
But it’s deeper than that, and here is where he introduces the Nekudas Habechira, the point of free-will:
We are all born at some point on the field of life. Some of us are born at the 5 yard-line and some of us are born 5 yards from the end zone. Some of us are born with great spiritual, material, and physical advantages. These advantages are given to a person based on genetics, who they were born to, luck. And some of us are born with great disadvantages. Superficially, the man or woman born 5 yards from the end zone is doing an amazing person. This person is smart, disciplined, and accomplished. They grew up to bright parents, in a loving home, and went to the best schools. This person is great. But in truth, they’re not great. Coasting on your natural gifts is meaningless. The objective of the game is not to celebrate where you are born, the objective of the game is to move forward from where you started. If someone was born 5 yards from the end zone and moved two yards and someone else was born on the 5-yard line and moved forward 60 yards, who is the more accomplished of the two?
For example, I was born into a family in which keeping Shabbos, keeping Kosher, those things were a given. When I refrain from eating non-Kosher that’s not a challenge for me. I’ve never tried non-Kosher and I have no interest in eating non-kosher. So every time I go to a store and only buy kosher items, I am not making a conscious choice to not buy that food, it’s second nature, and so I am not moving the line of scrimmage an iota. For others, that is a tremendous challenge. Every time they choose to buy Kosher, they are exercising free will and in doing so they move their line forward. Another example, I grew up in a home where daily Torah learning is a given; to learn a little every day is not an accomplishment. The fact that some of you are dedicating 30-45 minutes a day to learn is incredible. It’s the same learning, but for one person, it’s standing still, and for another, it’s moving forward. The same is true for character traits. Some of you may be naturally inclined to being polite or patient (otherwise known as Canadian); when you keep it together, that’s nice, but you didn’t move the line forward. Whereas some of you grew up in a volatile home and struggle with anger. When you stop yourself in mid-scream, you just scored a touchdown.
We could all just stand still, and people will applaud us for all those things we are naturally good at. But as long as I am not exercising my free-will, as long as I am just coasting on my upbringing or even choices I made decades ago, I am not living. Life is like a football game; if you’re not struggling to move your line forward, wherever that line is for you, spiritually speaking, you are not alive.
This week’s parsha begins with the words, Vayechi Yaakov b’eretz Mitzrayim shva esrei shana, and Yaakov lived for 17 years in the land of Egypt. The Medrashim tell us that those 17 final years of his life, lived in Egypt, were the best years of his life. And yet, the same Medrashim observe that our forefather is referred to as Yaakov in this verse, a name that connotes subjugation, and not Yisrael, the name that connotes triumph. Why? Because the subjugation to the Egyptians began during those 17 years. So which one is it? Are these the best years of his life? Are these the years that Yaakov is alive or are these years of intense struggle?
The answer is that it is both. Yaakov was 130 when he came to Egypt. If there was anyone who could have sat back and said, I have done it all. I stood up to Eisav, to Lavan, to Shechem, I am finally reunited with my family. I just want to have some nachas. But he did not do that. He rolled up his sleeves and faced the challenge of bringing his family together Egypt, of leading a family in a society that stood diametrically opposite everything he stood for. Yaakov did not kneel; he struggled, he made gains, I am sure he had losses, but he pushed forward, and that, that is life. Vayechi Yaakov b’eretz Mitzrayim shva esrei shana.
Let’s go a little further in this football analogy. Contrary to popular belief, despite growing up in Canada, as a little kid, I played sports other than hockey. Now we were not very sophisticated football players, so on any given play, as soon as the ball was hiked, I would run to the end zone, hoping the quarterback would chuck the ball up, giving me a touchdown. I would often drop the ball and that’s when I started playing hockey.
But that’s not really how the game of football works. One of the first things I noticed when I started watching a little bit of pro football is how many short passes there are. Short pass to OBJ. Short pass to Flowers. A few yard run by Lamar Jackson. 2 yards here, three yards there. And eventually, if you keep it up, you find yourself in the end zone with a touchdown.
Most of life is about small steps. Small gains. And here is where Rabbi Dessler’s original analogy of trench warfare falls short. Because in trench warfare, when you gain two yards, what do you do? Nothing. You get back to fighting. But when the Ravens gain two yards, when they get a first down, you know what they do?
They celebrate! They dance! They sometimes even do the Park Heights Strut…
There was a magnificent Talmid Chochom and educator by the name of Rabbi Shlomo Freifeld. He led a yeshiva called Sh’or Yashuv; at the time a place for students with limited backgrounds. There was one student who joined the Yeshiva and a few days in, confided with Rabbi Freifeld that he felt overwhelmed by the volume of learning. “There is no way,” he said, “that I will be able to keep up with the other students.”
The next day, Rabbi Freifeld walked into the Yeshiva with a leather bound Gemara for this student. The student opened the gemara and found in it a single Daf, one page. “This,” said Rabbi Freifeld, “is your Gemara. When you finish it, we will make a siyum, we will celebrate.”
Life is like a football game. It’s about knowing where you started, what you have already accomplished, and what your line of scrimmage is TODAY. It’s about making small steps forward, in the way we act with our family, in the way we think and speak, in the way we interact with G-d. And it’s about celebrating those small steps. Sometimes we act too tough to celebrate small wins but if the Ravens can, you can too.
This past Rosh Hashana, I pitched a learning program called 6/13, a daily 5-minute class I give on the parsha. Many of you have participated, some every day, some on some days. Today, we finished the book of Bereishis and so my wife and I are hosting a siyum, a celebration for all those who participated for the past 3 months. Some of you questioned the value of a celebration. “It’s just five minutes? Is this really such a big deal?” And the answer is yes. Because life is like a football game. And when you gain two yards, or when you fight back against the opposing team’s offense, you do a little jig; you celebrate.
But there’s one more way that life is like a game of football. As I mentioned, most of life involves small steps and small struggles. But every once in a while, you throw a Hail Mary (Sorry for the term but ‘Tis the season!). A hail Mary is that incredibly long throw from one side of the field to the other. It’s rare, but when it’s successful, it’s the highlight reel of the week.
Today, we are also celebrating a Hail Mary; a momentous decision, one that moves the line of scrimmage not just yards, but miles. 6,744 miles to be exact. We are celebrating the fact that Adriene and Harry Kozlovsky are making Aliyah. You’ve had a couple of Hail Mary’s in your life. You, along with a good number of people here today, started Yeshivat Rambam. It was bold, it was like an 80-yard pass. Despite the physical structure no longer remaining, the impact of that pass lives on. And now, you are going to a war zone, you are travelling away from family, to live your dream, the dream of every Jew, liyot am chofshi b’artzeinu. It is a bold move, a difficult move, and one that is an inspiration to us all. We will miss you and we wish you all the success in the world.
Yard by yard, day by day, may we all move our own lines of scrimmage closer and closer to the end zone.
*using a football game as an analogy for nekudas habechira was something I heard from Rabbi Moshe Hauer many years ago