I’m sure most of you remember
where you were on the night of Feb. 5.
That’s because over a hundred million Americans were watching the Super
Bowl. And at halftime, about 99 ½ million
thought the Patriots were going to lose.
As a big Patriots fan, I have to admit that I was one of them.
After halftime, it was as if they
were a different team. But things didn’t
get better right away. First they gave
up another touchdown to fall behind 28-3.
Twenty five points down!
But slowly they began to come
back. First they got a touchdown, but
they missed the extra point. Then they
drove down again, but had to settle for a field goal. Again, it would have been easy to give up.
You know the old saying, “If at
first you don’t succeed, try, try again?”
Well that’s what happened to the Patriots. They scored the last 31 points of the game,
including a touchdown in overtime, to win the Super Bowl.
But that expression could have
been invented by Joshua. In my haftarah,
Joshua, the new leader, who had just taken over from Moses, sends two spies to
scout out Jericho. Forty years earlier,
Moses had sent spies to check out the land.
That time, things didn’t turn out so well. My portion of Shelach Lecha describes what
happened. Twelve spies were sent and,
while they all thought the land was worth inhabiting, ten of them were
terrified at the people who were living there.
They told the Israelites that they felt like grasshoppers in their eyes
and that the people in the land looked like giants.
But this time, forty years later,
the two spies who went to Jericho discovered that the inhabitants of the land
were terrified of them.
With that good news in hand,
Joshua set out to conquer the city. But
the walls were huge! (insert joke here J)
So God told Joshua to march
around the city and complete one circuit, and repeat that for six days. They did as God told them. Then, the seventh time around, when they
concluded the circuit, they blew the shofar and, as the song says, the walls
came tumblin’ down.
What’s the lesson here? Why did they need to walk around it so many
times?
I think it’s to prove this point
– that nothing good in life comes easily, and when things don’t go right, keep
on trying. As Edwin Louis Cole said, “Winners
are not people who never fail, but people who never quit.”
As I become bar mitzvah this
morning, that’s an important lesson that will help me as I face the challenges
in life.
For my mitzvah project, I am
donating food and other items for people who are less fortunate to the Kosher
food pantry of the Jewish Family Service.
Now its time for the thank yous
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