The Baal Shem Tov famously said that everything we see and encounter in life is - as a matter of hashgocho protis - placed there so that we can learn a lesson. Whether or not the Baal Shem Tov would consider it appropriate that some of us are fervent sports fans is therefore beside the point; there is still a lesson to be learned from all we encounter. So in between exulting over the recent success of my AFL football club, the Richmond Tigers, I must look further and ask: what can their approach as a professional sports club mean for me as a Chassid?
Richmond won the premiership in 2017 (after a 37 year drought), and again in 2019. After their breakthrough success two years ago, a journalist who had spent a year "inside" the club wrote a book about the experience, seeking to distil the "special sauce" that led to the club's success. He brought it down to a single word - "connection". By opening up emotionally, the players developed a strong connection to each other. In practice, this translated into a "territory" game plan where players would tap the ball forward, confident that a teammate would be there to assist by receiving the ball or by applying pressure to regain possession. An essential component of this tactical game plan was the emotional connection foundation, where the players trusted each other to stick to the plan. When everyone was working together - both emotionally and physically - to a common goal, the results were outstanding.
After faltering in 2018, Richmond won again this year, with a similar game plan. The buzzword this year was "love". It's not a word we freely associate with masculine, physical footballers, yet the club embraced their human side to build even stronger emotional bonds at the club, and this translated into on-field success.
To summarise, their success is built on two things: connection and love. While the club uses those terms, to us, the concepts are hiskashrus, or perhaps achdus, and ahavas yisroel.
Chassidus explains that ahavas yisroel is built on the foundation that we all share a neshomo. While our external attributes and behaviours may often be a barrier to loving each other, when we look deep enough and consider that our essence is One, we can overcome those barriers and achieve a true feeling of ahavas yisroel toward each other. In this way, we can actually understand ahavas yisroel as a deeper expression of achdus. Indeed, love is also understood as a very deep connection between people (and da'as represents the most intimate connection between two people, and through study of Torah, between us and God).
What has happened here? A professional sporting club has "discovered" the special sauce of collective success, implemented it, and achieved success. But this special sauce has actually been "ours" for thousands of years! No, I'm not going to call this out as cultural appropriation. Rather, this should prompt us to look at ourselves and ask: what have we done with our special sauce?
Often is takes someone external to us to tell us what a gold mine we are sitting on. In this case, let it be Richmond Football Club. Every day we say in shmone esrei: "borchenu avinu kulanu k'echad" - "bless us our Father when we are as one". Ahavas yisroel is not just a goal in and of itself, but rather our unity and singularity of purpose are the prerequisite for our blessings and our (collective) success.
If 18 blokes chasing a piece of leather can do it, how much more can we do?
The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its individual Parts. When we unite we can do so much more than we can when we are not
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