For me and most sports fans of my generation, nothing was quite like the hearing Jim McKay proudly say, “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport, the trill of victory and the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition, this is ABC’s Wide World of Sports!”  An Olympic summer rekindles this memory as Wide World of Sports often highlighted Olympic events.  It was hard not to admire or worship athletes who traveled the world and pushed their bodies to the limit for victory.  I can still visualize my sports heroes raising the spoils of victory, but my memory is even clearer regarding the agony of defeat, the poor ski jumper that crashes and tumbles off the ski jump ramp just prior to takeoff, week after week after week. Often sports highlight the fact that where there is great success, there is often great failure.  For those of us in central Pennsylvania, we have had a front row seat to the dangers of hero worship. We have seen how hero worship can cause basic human dignity to be pushed aside.  It seems that simple values such as kindness, respect, integrity, and honesty are often lost in the drama and quest for achievement.  Our rabbis say that this is why we repeat prayers within a service, and from service to service, to focus our thoughts and actions on doing simple holy acts and to remind us to be good citizens and care of one another.  This is how we are supposed to serve and make our world a better place.

It is easy to get lost in the national fervor or the Olympic games, or our upcoming national elections for that matter.  Win or lose, united or divided, we have choices to make, and it is important to be responsible with our choices.  We live in a busy world, and it is also easy to get “lost” on a daily basis as a parent, child, sibling or spouse.  It is hard to be kind and be respectful every minute of every day.  I suppose that is why we are human and not divine.

Bill recently shared a graduation speech that Chaim Potok made at Juniata College in 1992.

 www.greateraltoonajewishfederation.org/life/quotes.html

Mr. Potok talks about the future, our country, our choices and the power we have to make a difference.  It is certainly worth your time.