BELIEVE

OG flying in for the win

Dear friends,

“One word,” he said calmly, “believe.”  

These were Jalen Brunson’s first words in his post-game interview minutes after the Knicks pulled off the greatest comeback in finals history, coming back from what appeared to be a hopeless 29 point deficit to win game 4. Sports are often a good metaphor for the ups and downs of life, for the spiritual path, for good living. But I don’t remember another game that spoke so directly to the human condition and the tough work of living in the face of adversity.   

I also can’t remember another moment in which the impact of a sporting event has so thoroughly transformed our city. One woman – one of the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who have zero interest in sports but are suddenly obsessed with the Knicks - said to me this week: “The last time the city felt like this was the week after 9/11.” She went on to describe how she witnessed kids asking for free ice cream at her local bodega because they had no money, and the answer of the guy at the counter: “of course!” The more common anxiety-driven money chase so prevalent here seems to have temporarily given way to camaraderie. And the general understanding among Knicks fans that our team cannot be trusted, and therefore you must expect a loss in order to prevent a giant disappointment has given way to a sense of calm. “Think they can do it again tonight,” I wrote to Jared the morning of game 2.  He wrote back right away: “100%! I feel good.” 

This is not typical Knicks fans’ confidence. Something is happening with our relationship with fear, which exploded into that miraculous victory Wednesday night. 

In a type of divine wink, this week’s parsha shows us what happens when we let our fear debilitate us and kill our belief in ourselves. The Israelites send spies to the Holy Land to check it out and they come back with a troubling report: “The people there are all 7’ 4 aliens. We don’t stand a chance against them.” That’s not a direct translation. “The children of the giants live there,” the spies report. “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves next to them!” That is a direct translation! And the people respond with confidence: “If only we had died in Egypt!” To be honest, Brunson does look a bit like a grasshopper next to Wemby. But, it seems - not to himself.

What are we meant to do when we’re facing giants and losing bad? In the locker room during halftime, Knicks coach Mike Brown gave them a simple instruction: “try to get it down to a 20 point deficit.” When they got there he said: “See if you can get it down to 15 by the end of the third quarter.” When asked in their post-game interviews what they were thinking about in that third quarter, the players didn’t talk about winning. They reported continuing to play their game, trusting their teammates and focusing on one play at a time. They all knew that no team had ever come back from such a deficit in a finals game. They knew that the Spurs were shooting incredibly well, and that they were playing against a very real 7’ 4 alien with stupidly long arms that swat away shots like flies. But they managed to divorce themselves from the bigger picture and any idea it might plant in their minds, and simply “play our game.” 

The rabbis make an important distinction in this week’s Haftarah between eyma, dread, and pachad, fear. Eyma, dread, they explain, is conceptual and often debilitating. It leads to the completely useless state, when - as the Book of Joshua describes it “hearts melt.”  If you looked at the eyes of the Spurs players during the final minutes of the their historic meltdown, you could detect that very condition. Pachad, on the other hand, fear, is visceral, immediate, close. It’s what you might feel when you’re trying to shoot over Wemby’s outstretched arm.  

What the Knicks managed to do on Wednesday was to keep their dread in check. When a person is afraid of something concrete, they can often do something about the object of their fear. If a Wemby is running at you, you’ll likely not freeze, but pass the ball to someone else, for example, in a way that creates a different kind of opening. One possession at a time, one action, one move, and then you might offer yourself a chance to shift the balance.

To BELIEVE, as Jalen called it, is only a big ask when you’re thinking beyond the one possession, the single moment you’re engaged in. Belief, these Knicks are teaching us, is made up of a lot of small, manageable actions. It's a type of equanimity in the face of long odds.  

“You gotta have a little luck,” Coach Brown said after the game. “but you can also go make your own luck, too." Let’s work on the little steps that will make our luck. 

Let’s GO KNICKS! 
Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Misha