{"id":36423,"date":"2014-06-23T17:57:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T17:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=36423"},"modified":"2014-06-23T17:57:44","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T17:57:44","slug":"game-bigger-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/","title":{"rendered":"The Game is Bigger than the Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href=\"http:\/\/rabbisacks.org\">rabbisacks.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/brazuca_feat-300x166.jpg\" alt=\"brazuca_feat\" width=\"300\" height=\"166\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-post-36423 wp-image-36427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/brazuca_feat-300x166.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/brazuca_feat.jpg 324w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>So the battle for the World Cup has finally begun. You could hardly miss it. Already in anticipation the logo on my computer search engine has been jumping up and down in excitement. And there\u2019ll be many cheers and groans ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Truth is, that I\u2019ve been reluctant to talk about football ever since an episode that happened more than twenty years ago. George Carey had just been chosen as Archbishop of Canterbury, and I\u2019d just been elected Chief Rabbi, when someone discovered that we had one major passion in common. We were both great Arsenal fans. So he wondered whether we might like to have our first ecumenical gathering in his box at Highbury stadium, then Arsenal\u2019s home ground: a midweek match for obvious religious reasons.<\/p>\n<p>We both enthusiastically agreed, and the great night came. Before the start of the match we were taken out onto the sacred turf itself where we presented a cheque to charity. The public address system announced who we were, and you could hear the buzz go around the ground. Whichever way you played the theological wager, that night Arsenal had friends in high places. They could not possibly lose.<br \/>\nThat night Arsenal went down to their worst home defeat in more than sixty years. They lost 6-2 to Manchester United. The next day a national newspaper reported the story and said, if the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi between them can\u2019t bring about a win for Arsenal, does this not finally prove that God does not exist?<\/p>\n<p>My reply was simple. I said, to the contrary. It proves that God exists. It\u2019s just that he supports Manchester United.<\/p>\n<p>Football is, of course, more than just a game. It has at least some similarities with religion. It involves ritual. It\u2019s about moments where we merge our identity with something larger than ourselves. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s about loyalty, about supporting your team even when it tests your faith to the limit. And when the winning goal is scored, and you rise to cheer with the crowd, you come as close as a secular moment can to a sense of transcendence, what Hobbes called \u201csudden glory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But what I learned that night that my team lost, was that the game is bigger than the team. That is a very deep truth indeed. We are tribal creatures. That\u2019s why humans fight wars. The more we can find symbolic substitutes for conflict the better. And they might just remind us of the even deeper truth that our shared humanity ultimately matters more than our religious differences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article originally appeared on rabbisacks.org. So the battle for the World Cup has finally begun. You could hardly miss it. Already in anticipation the logo on my computer search engine has been jumping up and down in excitement. And there\u2019ll be many cheers and groans ahead. Truth is, that I\u2019ve been reluctant to talk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132804,"featured_media":36427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Game is Bigger than the Team - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Game is Bigger than the Team - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article originally appeared on rabbisacks.org. So the battle for the World Cup has finally begun. You could hardly miss it. Already in anticipation the logo on my computer search engine has been jumping up and down in excitement. And there\u2019ll be many cheers and groans ahead. Truth is, that I\u2019ve been reluctant to talk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-23T17:57:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-06-23T17:57:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/brazuca_feat.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"324\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"180\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britain&#039;s Former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Britain&#039;s Former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/\",\"name\":\"The Game is Bigger than the Team - OU Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/brazuca_feat.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-06-23T17:57:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-06-23T17:57:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/9f7d9306507c9961874be7c16874ee02\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/brazuca_feat.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/brazuca_feat.jpg\",\"width\":324,\"height\":180},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/\",\"name\":\"OU Life\",\"description\":\"Everyday Jewish Living\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/9f7d9306507c9961874be7c16874ee02\",\"name\":\"Britain's Former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Britain's Former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/author\/jonathan-sacks\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Game is Bigger than the Team - OU Life","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/game-bigger-team\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Game is Bigger than the Team - OU Life","og_description":"This article originally appeared on rabbisacks.org. 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