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Q:
May a yeshiva bochur listen to sports on the radio?
A:
I’ll ask you a different question: May a yeshiva bochur stand on his head? Yes, if he wants to. But he’s a meshugenah if he does it.
What is sports? It’s so silly! The Yanks and the Mets hitting the baseball. It’s so meshugah. It’s an American goyishe meshugenah velt. It’s the headlines – Yanks, Mets. It’s so silly.
What sports does is the following. The headlines show us how empty the gentile world is. And therefore, we take a lesson from that. These foolish people who can make headlines from the most silly things – we have to say, “Can they be an example for us at all?! In anything?!”
ברוך אלוקינו שהבדילנו מן התועים. Boruch Hashem that He has separated us from these lost neshamos.
TAPE # E-210 (December 1999)
Q:
A lot of Jewish youth – and even adults sometimes – have an interest in playing sports and watching sports. What do you say about this phenomenon?
A:
It depends what you mean. If sports are played for the prestige of the uniform, for the prestige of being a sports player, then it’s as silly as could be. It’s a silly gentile thing. Here’s a boy, strutting down the street, in a lacrosse uniform. Did you ever see a lacrosse uniform? You don’t what it is? It’s a game that high schools and colleges play. So he’s strutting down the street in his uniform, all covered with helmets and padded things all over him, and he walks down the street like a hero. He has a halo of sanctity around him. That’s what they think. They think that sports is something noble. So this garbage we have to get out of our heads. There is nothing noble about holding a stick and smacking a baseball. There’s nothing noble about that; nothing heroic about it.
However, if it’s something done for exercise, then there’s no question – you don’t need me to tell you that exercise is important. If it’s not too strenuous, then exercise is very good.
But it would be even better if you would take a brisk walk for forty-five minutes. Not in the night time. And not on lonely streets. But a brisk walk in the fresh air is the best sport and the best exercise. And while you’re doing that, you can be thinking over all of the important ideas that a Jew should be filling his mind with. There’s no end to the thoughts that you must be filling your mind with that will prepare you for the World to Come. Whereas, if you’re banging around a ball or some other thing like that, that keeps your mind busy on small unimportant things, and the precious time is entirely wasted.
But watching sports?! That’s a one hundred percent waste of time! You should forget about all the ideals of sport and the glamour about sports. Because actually, it’s nothing at all.
TAPE # 48 (January 1975) |
Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l had a clear logical understanding to everything. But b”H for sports. Those who don’t have it in their heads, have it in their legs… – including Yeshiva bochurim. At least they don’t roam the streets.
This is good. I thank Hashem for the current day. His stadiums fill. I can get some reading done. 4 hours a hope no gentile seen the crowd.
Really, I watched them when I was young. I needed affirmation of the collective human plan. I was unorthodox.
Now I give and read all day. But I am not as rich!
Who would not spend the hours more collectively? The newspapers must be read. Babies must be fed.
Arena world is great. Violent gentiles find their out. Mull it.
Are you drunk???
This is the internet. I am not in your superbowl seat next to yourself. I imagine you can get drunk. Enjoy the ticket.
Thank you for spreading the Truth of the Torah’s view on sports. But halevai it should keep us away from worse sins r”l.
BH For Sports… The comment you made come across as a backhanded compliment to Rav Miller.Rav Miller is a genius who speaks emes and doesn’t deviate from emes. I think the Matzav commentators are missing his point. He clearly endorses sports for exercise. It’s healthy. He is speaking about the culture that comes with it. Please refer to the hedonistic culture that sports brings with it. I am an ex sports addict and I can tell you that this hit home. Sports culture is just a business. I love playing basketball, hockey, and baseball. But there is a anti-Torah culture which comes with the culture. Kobe Bryant’s death is the best example of the Avoda Zora which is sports. Rav Miller is correct. It’s emptiness.
B”H for sports and superbowls. These goyishe time wasters are meant to keep people off the streets. When special sports games are on TV the crime rate drops, except for stolen TV’s.
typo correction:
meant to keep goyim off the streets.
I was privileged to attend Yeshiva Gedola – Merkaz HaTorah – Tiferes Mordechai in Montreal in the mid-1970’s when the Rosh Yeshiva was Rav Mordechai Weinberg, ZT’L. A number of times he related the following incident.
The year was 1940, when World War II was fully raging in both Europe and Eastern Asia. Even though the Unites States had not (yet) “officially” entered the war, it was giving very strong support to England in its desperate battle against the Nazi onslaught and was sharply condemning the Japanese aggression against China. Anyway, Rav Weinberg — who then was in his early teens — was walking on a street in Brooklyn. At one point, he sees a newspaper stand; he notices that, that day’s edition of the local major newspaper had, in extra-large letters, a huge full-page headline:
“WE WON!!”
So Rav Weinberg excitedly in his mind thought: “WHAT HAPPENED??? DID THE BRITISH REPEL THE NAZIS??? DID THE CHINESE REPEL THE JAPANESE???” So, he quickly went over to the stand to get a closer look. We he got there, he immediately saw WHAT was it that “we” had won: “The Pennant”!
What is “The Pennant”? BE’H, let me explain a little about the world of the major sport of Baseball. Almost every major American city has an official professional Baseball team, and the very big New York City, has two teams, the Yankees and the Mets. Many years ago, New York had four teams; along with the Yankees and the Mets, there were the Giants and the Dodgers. (In 1956 though, these two other teams moved to the Western U.S.; the Giants to San Francisco, and the Dodgers to Los Angeles. So, instead of the NEW YORK Giants and the BROOKLYN Dodgers, for these last 64 years, it has been the SAN FRANCISCO Giants and the LOS ANGELES Dodgers.)
Now, the many, many teams are grouped into two big groups called “leagues.” Throughout a year’s baseball season, each team in a league will play a couple of games with each of the other teams in its league. The team of the league that wins the most games in the season, is awarded “The Pennant”; in other words, (for that season) it is declared the top team of the league and given the privilege of now playing the top team of the other league in a group of seven games called “The World Series.”
So, near the end of the baseball season in 1940, this New York newspaper was excitedly blaring the great news that its team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, had just “Won The Pennant” and would thus have the esteemed honor of being in that year’s World Series. Please note that the news was NOT that they had won the World Series itself (and they actually did not win that year’s series); instead, it was that they had won just “the Pennant,” the privilege to be able TO BE IN the series.
Now, Rav Avigdor Miller himself will agree that playing baseball very well and winning many games is an accomplishment. Of course, though, like he says here, he will say that it is a very TINY accomplishment, but it certainly is some level of an “accomplishment,” which does deserve some, albeit small, level of recognition.
However, at that very moment (of that newspaper’s publication), in two huge regions of the world, one of the fiercest wars in human history was violently raging. Whole cities — whole countries — were being brutally swallowed up, and hundreds of thousands of people were being cruelly massacred.
Now, if the newspaper would have put the pennant announcement as a heading — not a whole page splash, but just a heading of an article — on its inside-the-paper-sports-page, I am sure that Rav Weinberg and Rav Miller would have said that, that was understandable and appropriate. But that instead, the paper put it as a full-page blast and placed this full-page blast on its FRONT-PAGE COVER, this was clearly a horrendous monster of baseball exaggeration. Furthermore, that it did this right during such a massively grave serious epoch, was outright severely callous and wicked.
Last week, I made a special request from Best Buy to have my new 100 inch flat screen TV delivered in a Shabbos-mode refrigerator box. They were very accommodating and said that was their standard practice for TV’s ordered from my Zipcode.
“Furthermore, that it did this right during such a massively grave serious epoch, was outright severely callous and wicked.” I submit that statement is yours and not Rav Motel’s. He would never have said that. For those of us who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, the yeshivish world and its Rebbeim were more tolerant of the secular world and what it had to offer. Baseball may have been shtus, but it was harmless shtus. The yeshivish world we live in today is intolerant and seeks to suppress all non-Torah activities. I feel sorry for the young men and women who are brought up in such a cloistered atmosphere.
Rav Miller was my mashgiach in Chaim Berlin. But my rebbe was Rav Motel Weinberg, z’l. One day, Rav Motel sees my friends going thru my wallet. He grabs the wallet and sees Mickey Mantle baseball cards. He says to me: “why don’t you have a picture of me in your wallet?” I reply: “Rebbe, if you hit 52 home runs you would be in my wallet.” He replies: “Gut gezocked”. Rav Motel understood the needs of a 13 year old. He knew that there was a world out there which did not include Torah but which gave children the rest and relaxation that made them more able to accommodate 12 hour days in the yeshiva.
But……Was he a Yankees fan?
יישר כח Sol for your great comments!
To Mr. Sol Liss:
Thank You Very Much for relating the incident with our Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Mordechai “Motel” Weinberg, ZT’L, and the Mickey Mantle cards in your wallet!
Yes, Rav Motel Weinberg and Rav Avigdor Miller and all our Gedolay Torah, both past and present, had and have the wisdom to know how to realize the positive value and usefulness of countless items that may not be part of Torah, but when they are utilized in the proper way, then they too become really part of Torah. Of course, included in this wisdom is the ability to recognize and properly work with the position and the needs of each individual student. A small but great example of this is this incident when Rav Motel saw your Mickey Mantle cards.
At the same time, in his lectures, Rav Motel did relate the incident of himself and the newspaper headline. The way he related it conveyed that he was GREATLY ABHORRED when he discovered that the mammoth super “Win” loudly proclaimed on the newspaper’s cover was nothing about a successful thwarting of the deadly Nazi or Japanese onslaughts. Rather, it was that the local baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, had won the Pennant! (Again, please also note that the win WAS NOT that they had won the actual World Series, but only the Pennant to play in the series.)
So, I postulated that IF the newspaper would have put an announcement about the Pennant win on the first page OF ITS SPORTS SECTION, Rav Mordechai Weinberg would most probably have had no objections and Rav Avigdor Miller would most probably have had no objections and all other Gedolay Torah would most probably have had no objections. Not only that, but avid baseball fans would have been entirely satisfied and pleased with the announcement and even the HEAD COACH of the Brooklyn Dodgers would have been entirely satisfied and pleased with the announcement and even THE OWNER of the Brooklyn Dodgers would have been entirely satisfied and pleased with the announcement. Even if it had not been a full-page splash but just a large, noticeable headline of an article, that most probably would have been more than enough of a nice, beautiful announcement of the big win.
That instead, it was made as a huge full-page splash, and this huge full-page splash was splashed on THE FRONT COVER PAGE of the whole paper, was really, entirely not necessary and was thus a very gross exaggeration of it.
Furthermore, that this gross exaggeration of a baseball win was done right when a terrible dangerous war was raging on both sides of the world, in which, every day, thousands of people were being killed — I think we can correctly say that, that was quite callous and wicked.
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Again, I never said that playing baseball was callous and wicked. Instead, what I did say was that making a huge unnecessary over exaggeration splash of a certain baseball win during what was a very terrible dangerous epoch of human history with horrendous loss of human life was callous and wicked.