Each time there is an international tournament I get excited, maybe you have felt the same. It could be the World Cup, the Winter Olympics, the Summer Olympics, or practically any other, and suddenly I am COMPLETELY invested in the outcome of a sport I knew next to nothing about just a few weeks before. Curling, figure skating, bi-athalon, or luge, all of these become our world for a few weeks. Athletes of countries we know well or have never heard of are competing for personal and national glory on the international stage. That stage is the ideal for a world we’d love to see. Where competition isn’t a matter of life or death; rather, it is a game we play because we can live peacefully together as human beings. On Shabbat, we read a Psalm which imagines all of humanity living in Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden. In this paradise, Shabbat is not only a weekly relief, but it is the perfect rest that we all live in each moment of every day. War and strife are nonexistent and hunger and … [Read more...]