Coming Together Can Be Miraculous (Temple Beth Or)
With the PyeonChang Olympics approaching, a certain element of this year’s lead-up to the Games has me thinking of a major highlight from the 1980 Winter Olympics: The so-called Miracle on Ice. In that year’s Olympics, the US men’s ice hockey team staged an impossibly-unlikely upset against the Soviet team on their way to winning a gold medal. This match was an extraordinary moment in sports history, and in 2008 the International Ice Hockey Federation even went so far as to name it the top international hockey story of the preceding century.
2018 may be the year of a second, reconstituted miracle on ice. In contrast to the 1980 Miracle—which was about an improbable victory and a team’s triumph over a bitter rival—the spirit of this contemporary miracle is rapprochement; in an exceptionally controversial move, the president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, reached an agreement with the leadership of North Korea that will accomplish two significant things. First, this agreement will let many North Korean athletes come to South Korea to compete under their own flag at the upcoming competitions. However, perhaps more importantly, it will also establish a joint North and South Korean ice hockey team that will compete this year at the Games.
By the time the Olympics roll around (and this newsletter article goes out), it could well be that this situation has dramatically changed…in fact, this seems likely given the fast pace of contemporary news! Nevertheless, I am ineluctably tempted to reflect on what the agreement between these two longtime-rivals could represent. Of course, there are those around the world (including analysts from both the United States and South Korea) who reasonably view this development in a negative light, and my Jewish read on the situation is not meant to rebut their legitimate concerns. However, I do believe it is worthwhile to reflect on the situation through a Jewish lens and to appreciate the very real good that can be attained by people simply coming together. I don’t think it is merely an artistic or aesthetic choice that we often begin our services with the words of Psalm 133: הִנֵּה מַה-טּוֹב וּמַה-נָּאִים, שֶׁבֶת אַחִים גַּם-יָחַד, Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers sit together!
Focusing more on this line, it is worth noting a significant, but often-overlooked nuance in the phrase שֶׁבֶת אַחִים (“shevet achim”). While I translate it above as “when brothers sit together” (and other translators stretch the Hebrew even further, rendering it “that brothers sit together”), the form of the Hebrew is actually best understood as (the admittedly inelegant): “Behold how good and pleasant is the sitting-together of brothers.” The idea of this verse is not that it is lovely that brothers sit together; we know, of course, that they often choose not to! Even “when brothers sit together” is a bit of a stretch: In plenty of sibling relationships, the question about their sitting-together isn’t about a “when,” but an “if.” Thus, the Bible thoughtfully instructs us to do the following: Simply recognize the objective beauty in an ideal of brothers being together.
The 18th century Torah commentator David Altshuler, in his commentary Metzudat David, reflected on the last words of this verse in light of erstwhile divisions of the Jewish people. In the Bible, Jews too are described as having been divided into dual rival kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Altshuler writes, prompted by the words גַּם-יָחַד: “ויהיו גם יחד במלכות אחת ולא יחצו לשתי ממלכות עוד,” “That they [the Israelites] should be together under a single kingship and not be divided into two kingdoms again.”
While we are not (at least formally) talking about “kingdoms” in our contemporary setting, I think the sentiment transfers to the modern spirit well enough. As we watch the games unfold, I think we can be fairly realistic about the immediate, larger political outcomes we can expect. However, perhaps we can set our sights a little low: For there to be a miracle on ice again this year, the being-together of two peoples may, actually, be enough. If we agree with Psalm 133, we might see this joint team as something of beauty, something “good and pleasant,” something miraculous.