Keep Your Eye on the Ball
At Touro Synagogue February 23, 2019
also on facebook
After three weeks of sermons about the Super Bowl I think it’s time for a change. Baseball season is not far away.
Flying from Tel Aviv to Boston made for a long day. After just a few hours of sleep, I woke up at 5::45 AM on February 22 and drove from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion Airport. I was tired and circled in the large airport three times before I found the Hertz rental car return. My flight left at 10:30 AM for Istanbul. My final flight landed in Boston at 5:59 PM. I took Logan Express to Braintree, and arrived at my Foxboro home at 7:47 PM. That adds up to 10 hours, to which 7 hours should be added to account for the time difference.
My trip was very successful. It took a week to recover from the exhaustion and to reset my clock. At the beginning I was having supper at 4 PM, and waking up the next day at 2 or 3 AM.
The day after I arrived I went to services at Touro Synagogue. I was a little bit late, and before I could sit down I was called to the bimah for an aliyah.
Rabbi Marc Mandel said,
“In our society we are very much focussed on being successful. We send our children to school at a young age - we want them to go to a good college and have good careers.
“We are all focused on success. What happens when there is failure? Do we know how to cope with failure?
“Success and failure is at the heart of this week’s parsha, Ki Tisa(Hebrew). The Jewish nation was successful. They witnessed the ten plagues, the splitting of the Red Sea. They received the torah at Mt. Sinai. People from all over the globe were attracted to Judaism. They were a successful people.
“Then came failure and the sin of the golden calf. A great nation falling for the fatal attraction of the golden calf! Entire families were swept up in this huge mistake. Even Moshe’s family wasn't spared - his brother Aharon participated in this event. What happened?
“Rabbi Shay Schechter explains that the Jews became distracted. They weren't really focused on God. It’s so hard to stay focused - especially today when we are all distracted by the technology that is all around us. Cellphones, e-mail, text messages, facebook, youtube, Netflix, twitter, instagram - how can anyone stay focused today? It’s impossible.
“That’s what happened to the Jewish people. They couldn't stay focused. Rabbi Schechter quotes the posuk from Shir Hashirim 4;9, לִבַּבְתִּנִי באחד (בְּאַחַת) מֵעֵינַיִךְ, “I loved you with one of my eyes.” What does that mean, “With one of your eyes?” The midrash says that while the Jews were receiving the torah, they had one eye on the golden calf. They were distracted by the glitter of the golden calf.
“This is the challenge we all have, to not be distracted from our main tasks.
“Shabbat Shalom”
Being easily distracted can sometimes be helpful. Our lives our insecure. We need to be alert to distractions because something important might be happening. It’s when the distractions take over that we can run into a problem.
When I am trying to accomplish something, I find that I constantly succumb to a distraction…the latest news and weather, e-mail, facebook, tuning into the background music, crossword puzzles (I prefer the New York Times Monday puzzle, which I can usually complete without getting everything right). And then there is the refrigerator. How much more might I accomplish if I kept my eye on the ball.
May you keep your eyes on the ball without being overly distracted.
Shabbat Shalom from Jewish Newport!
Thank you to Rabbi Mandel for sharing his words of torah and to Beth Ginsburg Levine for editing.
for another opinion https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/opinion/sunday/the-art-of-distraction.html
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