I am very excited for the opportunity to share words of Torah with you. Each week, in this spot, I look to share an idea I've found that speaks to me and that I think will resonate with you as well. This week, I'd like to do something a little bit different and share with you an excerpt from two different articles commenting on the same thing. One is an excerpt from an article by Rabbi Elliot Mathias entitled ‘Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks’ Shocking Failure’ and the other is an excerpt from an article by Rabbi Efrem Goldberg entitled 'Why Giannis is Wrong: Failing to Say Failure'. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on which perspective you are more inclined toward.
Last week, the Milwaukee Bucks, who finished with the best record in the NBA regular season, were eliminated from the playoffs by the Miami Heat, the 8th seed who barely snuck in. The Bucks’ star player, Giannis Antetokounmpo was asked following the game whether he viewed the season as a "failure." His refreshingly raw answer went instantly viral. [Here is] Giannis’ full answer to the reporter:
"Do you get a promotion every year on your job? No, right? So, every year you work is a failure? Yes or no? No. Every year you work, you work toward something—toward a goal, right? — which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, to be able to … provide a house for them or take care of your parents. You work toward a goal. It’s not a failure. It’s steps to success. ...There’s always steps to it. Michael Jordan played 15 years. Won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? … Exactly, so why do you ask me that question. It’s the wrong question. There’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days, some days you are able to be successful, some days you are not, some days it is your turn, some days it’s not your turn. That’s what sports is about. You don’t always win. Some other group is gonna win and this year someone else is gonna win. Simple as that. We’re gonna come back next year and try to be better, try to build good habits, try to play better … and hopefully we can win a championship. So, 50 years from 1971 to 2021 [the Bucks] didn’t win a championship, it was 50 years of failure? No it was not. There were steps to it. And we were able to win one and hopefully we can win another one."
This was Rabbi Mathias's approach, supportive of Antetokounmpo's remarks:
[...] Many sports commentators and pundits condemned Antetokounmpo's comments. Didn’t he understand that sports are about winning? Why was he avoiding taking responsibility? What about all the fans he let down? Antetokounmpo's message is that the best way to take responsibility is to maintain hope and belief. By finding the ability to be fueled by our disappointments to move forward and not to allow them to handcuff us from accomplishing our goals – that is the path to success. Maybe life isn't supposed to be black and white. Maybe living a path of constant effort, struggle, determination, and dreaming will necessarily lead to coming up short and disappointment. But that doesn't mean it's a failure; it’s just as Antetokounmpo said: "a step to success".
And this was Rabbi Goldberg's approach, critical of Antetokounmpo's remarks:
[...] While I admire and appreciate Giannis’s sentiment and understand the attraction to his encouragement, I believe his failure to label his season a failure is damaging. [...] Failing forward begins by recognizing and admitting failure. Failures are steps to success only if we pause to honestly assess them as failures, address how they occurred, ask what we can learn from them, and determine how we can avoid them happening again. Failures generate success when we take responsibility for them, hold ourselves accountable for them, and use them to motivate ourselves. When we whitewash them, downplay and minimize them, we fail to take responsibility for them; we cannot fix them or avoid them. Minimizing and diluting failures by refusing to acknowledge them and instead describing them as part of a process, as steps on a journey, constitutes a failure to be honest, accurate, or accountable. [...]
Which perspective would you take? Is one more aligned with Torah values?
Have a Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Davies
Rabbi@SOICherryHill.org
