By Rabbi Eli Friedman
The Torah tells us "You shall be holy" - let us understand the meaning of holiness.
Ever been to a baseball game? No? Well, let me tell you two interesting things about ballgames.
1. A ballgame features about 30,000 people gathered around 18 people playing ball, watching every move, every play, and hanging on to every moment.
2. Yet the players are professionals, and therefore, no matter how loudly you holler at them, taunt them, or critique their performance, they will utterly ignore you, most of the time. They are way too focused: they have a game to win.
So though the stadium may be filled with people, 18 of them are totally disconnected from the other 30,000. They're in a hyper-focused dimension, oblivious to the noise around them. The players are in their zone and the 30,000 spectators are outside the zone.
In a sporty kind of way, the players are holy.
This is because at its essence, the word holy means separate, exclusive, transcending the environment. In that sense, ball players who are there but not really there are quite holy.
The spectators are left to cheer, to boo, to support, to oppose, to adore, to disparage, to love or to hate. Until the end of the game, the players won't notice either way.
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Planet Earth is a giant stadium, covering about 197 million square miles. In the center of the stadium, in a space that is 0.004% of the world's surface is the playing field. Israel.
Seven billion spectators are gathered in the stadium, riveted and unable to look away as the players do their thing. The players are a tiny group, .0214% of the world's population. The Jewish People.
The spectators can get rowdy. They cheer, they boo, they support, they oppose, they adore, they disparage, they love or they hate. And lately, it's been a hostile crowd.
But unlike at the ballgame, the players in this game seem to turn to respond to every insult and every epithet!
When the spectators holler their critique, telling the players to play it this way or that way, the players are listening and responding!
When fools are shouting about the players and their families and their appearances - the players are getting offended!
Sometimes, the players even huddle up together and whisper and shake their heads in dismay at the unfair heckling and jeering...
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Folks! We have a game to win. We need to get our holy on.
Like a great coach prepping his team before a must-win game, G-d tells us, "Be holy. I am holy, you be holy too."
Focus. Block out the noise. Security is standing by You win the game.
לע"נ הרה"ח הרה"ת ר' מאיר יהודא ישראל ע"ה בהרה"ג הרה"ח הרב מרדכי ע"ה נאמן בית חיינו ומשב"ק הארליג נפטר כ"ט סיון, ה'תשפ"ג ת'נ'צ' ב'ה' In loving memory of Rabbi Meyer Yehuda Yisrael Harlig ע"ה to dedicate an issue call (718) 778 6000
