Dear Friends,
A bar mitzvah boy came to the Rebbe for a “Yechidut” – a personal meeting with the Rebbe – in order to receive a blessing in honor of his bar mitzvah. He knew that the Rebbe asks children what they learned in school and he had prepared himself with answers, but, to his surprise, the Rebbe talked to him about sports, which team he favors and such like.
And then the Rebbe said: “You surely know that when there is a game, there are the players themselves – just a handful – and then there are the fans, tens of thousands of them, cheering on ‘their’ team. Sometimes one team loses by such a difference that even during the game it is clear that it has no chance of winning. When that happens, the disappointed fans start to leave the stadium even before the end of the game. It is clear to them that in this instance they have no chance of getting the pleasure of seeing their team win.
“But who doesn’t leave until the last minute? The players themselves. They continue to play, full force, to the last minute. There is no chance of winning; their fans, so important to them, are leaving already, crestfallen, but they remain there, fighting to the end.”
At this point the Rebbe looked straight at the boy and said: “The vast majority of people behave like fans; a small percentage behave like players. In honor of your bar mitzvah, take upon yourself to be a player!”
There are many good people in our world. They do good deeds and mean well. But when things become difficult, if it seems to them that there is no longer any chance, then slowly they start to withdraw from the arena. They are the fans. The players, though, don’t give up even when it seems that there is no chance of succeeding. They fight for their beliefs to the end.
Dear friends, this powerful and impelling idea of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (how characteristic of him!) is exactly what happened on Chanukah. It is also the central message we should take with us from Chanukah into our own lives. Matityahu and his sons had no chance of winning. They were few and weak and they were facing the powerful army of the ruling culture. But Matityahu raised the flag of revolt and called out “Whoever is for Hashem, come to me!”
The Hashmona’im were not fans; they stayed until the very end. They were players, and players do not leave the arena before the game is really over.
Friends, take a minute and ask yourselves: Are you leading your lives as players or as fans?
Shabbat Shalom, Chodesh Tov and a happy and light-filled Chanukah!
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski