Parshat Devarim (Chazon): Euro Spies

I am not a football fan.

However, in my line of work, when the students enquire as to which team you support, one must respond.  With this in mind, I decided to go with Tottenham.  I like the team strip (Zionistic blue and white, how can you beat that?) and the fact that I visited White Hart Lane a few years ago for a school training course.  By the way, they had a great hospitality suite.

To compound my admiration for the team, my step-daughter's husband, A (I can't really call him my step-son-in-law as it's too much of a mouthful) is a seriously committed Arsenal fan.  Season ticket holder.  The lot.  It makes for good conversation, even though the only player I've heard of is Harry Kane and apparently, he wants to leave!  I have no idea what position they ended up in the league last season, but I do remember the so-called Glory Days of the 1980s when 'we' had players like Lineker and Klinsmann.

Because he takes it all so seriously and gets depressed when 'we' beat his team (it happens occasionally), I enjoy the banter.  The North London Derby means very little to me.  Not so to him.

My daughter, T, has experienced quite a summer in the football stakes.  She works as an usher at Wembley Stadium and has been present for all the major matches, including the European Cup final that took place on Sunday.  It is an event that she won't forget but unfortunately, not for the right reasons because the behaviour she saw from some fans shocked and disgusted her. 

Over the years, although not a football fan, I have invested time in watching England play during the two international major tournaments.  It has always ended up in witnessing a group of young (and not so young) hopefuls experiencing the desolation of being beaten and having to leave the competition.  But that's whole point of the exercise.  In every game, there will always be winners and losers.  The victorious team goes through to the next round or, as in last Sunday's Final, wins the cup.  Their fellow countrymen celebrate whilst those of the other squad console themselves but inevitably look forward to the next encounter.  Time is the healer.

What made this year's competition different was that for once, England made it through to the Final.  Because football seems to be the nearest spiritual (both figuratively and literally) experience that most England's citizens seem to feel, there was a rare coming together of people from all strata, irrespective of their colour, creed, gender, faith or political belief.  Football, the 'Beautiful Game' entered the national zeitgeist. 

It was, for a few weeks, ubiquitous. 

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be sent on such a mission?

The twelve lucky men, leaders of their tribes had been instructed to scout out the Land of Canaan and bring back a report.  It was the second year after the Exodus and the Israelites were on the cusp of entering the 'Promised Land'.  They could have easily conquered it within weeks led by the leaders of their generation, Moses, Aaron and Miriam. 

But we know what happened and how they failed, aside from Joshua and Caleb. 

They really messed it up and this week's Parsha reminds us of this everlasting stain on our nation.  When they returned and submitted their verbal report, the result led to a night of wailing and mourning whose anniversary we will commemorate this evening, with the exit of Shabbat and entrance of Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av - a day whose bloodied history is ingrained into our collective memory.  Before the outbreak of WW1, before the Inquisition, before the expulsion of this countries' Jews, before the destruction of both Temples, before all this, this evening saw, over three thousand, three hundred years ago, a nation that cried bitterly for no reason.

In both situations, the reaction by some fans to the loss of the game and the actions of ten men who should have known better, led to the destruction of something that is so precious, namely idealism.

I know I speak for you when I describe the anger and bitter disappointment I felt as I heard about the racist behaviour of a vocal minority of fans towards three black members of the English Squad.  I know I speak for you, when I describe how appalled I was by the hordes of thuggish fans who stormed the ticket barriers and put their lives and those of the people, like my daughter, who could have been located there, into danger.  The 'Beautiful Game' was anything but.

I guess that, in linking both events and their protagonists, I despair in the selfish behaviour of the few, which resulted in bursting an ethereal bubble, which both represented the very best in British Spirit and at the same time could have changed Jewish history (and made the Torah considerably shorter!)

Has humanity learned nothing?

And that's where, for me, these Three Weeks and their culmination in the Fast of Tisha B'Av really resonate.

It may be difficult to really appreciate what the destruction of both Temples meant to the course of our collective history, which is why the Fast has understandably shifted its focus (beyond the scriptural readings, such as the Book of Eichah and Kinnot) in recent years to the Shoah.  It isn’t, however, hard to understand that this period is much more than that.  If the lack of sensitivity exhibited by one human being to others, whether in the wake of the Final or, as a result of the spies' report, culminated in the hurt caused in both events, then we have much to learn, as citizens of the world, with regard to the societies that we inhabit.

I cannot alter the conduct of the spies any more than I can stop a football fan from hurling himself through a barrier or spewing out electronic insults through an internet connection.  What I can do is to dare to dream that the idealism envisaged by others is never out of place.  Tisha B'Av teaches us that, despite the odds, there is always hope that we can overcome.

There is an apocryphal story told of Napoleon Bonaparte who was going past a Shul in a small Jewish town in Europe on Tisha B'av.  He entered the Shul and saw the Jews seated on small stools on the floor, holding candles and prayer books.  There was an impressive chandelier with only a few lit candles.  The atmosphere was dark and gloomy.  When he enquired as to the misfortune for which the Jews were mourning, a Jewish French Officer explained that nothing terrible had happened recently but that this very day was Tisha B'Av and that the people had been mourning the Temple’s destruction for two millennia.  Napoleon famously replied:

"A nation that cries and fasts for over 2,000 years for their land and Temple will surely be rewarded with their Temple."

Perhaps those football fans could learn something from our modestly sized nation.  The spies sinned and the people were punished but their descendants have not forgotten what we lost and what could have been.  Had we acted differently, the Temples would not have been destroyed and we would not have endured a crushing exile that exists to this day.  We may have lost the idealism that propelled us out of Egypt, but we always found our way back home.

It is a lesson that our fellow citizens could take upon themselves.  The Squad lost the match and the Tournament, but that wasn't the point.  Just as we stood together in unity when we hoped for the result that we all wanted, we should do the same now, irrespective of the outcome.

In victory or defeat, the way we act towards our fellow citizens is infinitely more valuable than that inscribed silver cup. 

Shabbat Shalom.