The Brotherhood of the Games
By: Paula R. Stern
August, 2008
It isn’t easy to find humor on Tisha B’Av. The ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av is one on which great personal and national tragedies have befallen our people. The three weeks that precede Tisha B’Av, in general, are viewed with concern and mourning. These three weeks are notorious in our history for having bad things happen and so, as a rule, we avoid all manner of potentially dangerous activities in order to hopefully avoid mishap and injury.
In acknowledging this period, Jews try to avoid traveling when possible. We don’t go swimming. We don’t make deals or negotiate contracts. We simply do our best to just wait it out and get through this sad period each year. And we remember the many times when tragedy did befall us. Our Holy Temples were destroyed – both on the same day, Tisha B’Av, though hundreds of years apart. The Spanish Inquisition chose this day in 1492 to begin the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. World War I began on Tisha B’Av, as did the final preparations for the ill-planned expulsion of the Jews from the communities in Gaza and northern Shomron.
And so, for many of us, it was a bit of a concern to hear that the Beijing Olympics would begin during this period and the fact that the father of one of the swimmers fell and tragically died just days before the Olympics was scheduled to begin, simply fit in with the anticipation of tragedy that often sets the mood here in the days before Tisha B’Av.
As for the Olympics themselves, Israel’s main goal was more in line with participation than anything else. Since Israel doesn’t really expect to compete in most sports tournaments at the level of gold, silver, or bronze, it is enough for us to be there and experience the thrills of the games. Just let them go and come home safely, many of us thought to ourselves, as we remember Munich in 1972, and the terrorism that violated the Olympics in the past.
No, victory was not really anticipated. Dreamed about, hoped for, certainly. But really not expected. No, not really. And in that we were wrong. Israel won today. First, there was the luck of the draw. According to the way things worked out, an Iranian swimmer, Mohammed Alirezaei was scheduled to swim at the same time against Israeli’s Tom Be’eri. At first, the Iranian Olympic Committee announced that Alirezaei would participate and it made sense. After all, he was scheduled to swim a full 5 lanes away from the Israeli.
Be’eri had little chance for placing among the medal winners, though he did set a new Israeli record but the victory came in the cowardice of the Iranians. At the last minute, Mohammed Alirezaei left his lane empty instead of swimming against our competitor in the 100-meter breaststroke category. And thus our victory.
In the brotherhood of the games, Iran has once again proven they have no place. And Israel…Israel has simply proven that we belong in the world of nations. Our victory was in beating our own national record and in daring and caring enough to compete. Iran’s childish behavior simply proves again that this is not a nation that can be trusted to have weapons of mass destruction.
They have a madman for president and childish cowards as their sports heroes. Despite the solemn day here in Israel in light of so many defeats and tragedies over the centuries, it seems today we were handed the simplest of victories. And all we had to do to get it, was to simply put our swimmer’s feet in the water.
The true story of the Olympics is in the glory of the competition and the challenge of meeting people from all over the world. The victory of the Olympics is not the medals that are handed out, but the courage to step up to each line and run or swim or jump the best you can at that moment. To race the clock and another human being without regard to where they come from, what they believe, or the color of their skin. The victory for Israel was that we stepped up to the pool and were prepared to dive in, even if someone from a country promising to wipe us off the face of the map was there too. We dove for glory, Mohammed Alirezaei and Iran fled in shame.
Even if many of our people are fasting today, in Beijing the Iranians handed us the icing on the cake.
Techshoret | WritePoint
