There are moments in sport that become parables. This week offered one.
England had taken the lead. The hard part, it seemed, had been done. But instead of pressing forward with confidence, the strategy changed. The attacking players were withdrawn. Defensive players took their place. The message, whether intended or not, was unmistakable: Protect what you have. Don't risk losing it.
And something subtle happened. When a team stops believing it can create, it begins believing it can only preserve. When it stops playing to win, it starts playing not to lose. The result, as we know, was painful. Argentina equalised, gathered momentum, and England eventually lost the match.
Football, like life, is played as much in the mind as on the field. Long before our feet change direction, our hearts already have. There is a similar debate at the heart of Jewish spirituality.
King David writes in Psalms, "Sur mei'ra va'aseh tov" – "Turn away from evil and do good."
At first glance, the order seems obvious. First remove the weeds; then plant the flowers. First conquer your faults; then cultivate your virtues. Indeed, this became the emphasis of many great ethical traditions within Judaism.
The Mussar masters urged relentless honesty. Search your soul. Expose every weakness. Uproot every vice. Wage war against pride, jealousy, anger and temptation. Before building a sanctuary, clear away the rubble. It is a noble path.
But then, in the 18th century, a new voice emerged from the forests and villages of Eastern Europe. The Baal Shem Tov did not deny darkness. He simply questioned whether darkness should become the centre of one's attention. He taught something breathtakingly hopeful.
Do not spend your life analysing your shadows. Turn toward the light. Fill your days with holiness. Fill your heart with gratitude. Fill your mind with Torah. Fill your life with kindness. Darkness is not chased away with sticks. It disappears when you light one small candle.
The Baal Shem Tov understood something both profoundly spiritual and profoundly human: wherever attention goes, energy follows.
If every day I awaken asking, "What is wrong with me?" then my flaws become the landscape of my life. But if I awaken asking, "What good can I create today? Whom can I help? What blessing can I bring into the world? How can I become a vessel for G-d's light?" then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the darkness loses its grip.
Your soul wasn’t sent to this world simply to play defence. It was created to illuminate the world. Some people spend years mentally living inside their own penalty box. They endlessly analyse their failures. Replay old regrets. Fight yesterday's battles.
Become preoccupied with temptations they wish they didn't have, fears they wish they didn't feel, habits they wish they could break. Their entire spiritual life becomes defensive. They are forever trying not to fall.
But Judaism asks something infinitely more ambitious. Do not merely avoid becoming less. Become more. Do not only resist darkness. Generate light. Do not only protect your soul. Expand it. Our task is not simply to survive but to flourish. The Baal Shem Tov invited us to play offence.
To ask not only, "How do I stop sinning?" but, "How do I become more spiritually conscious and alive?" Because a soul that is busy shining has remarkably little time to be imprisoned by its darkness.
In our generation, there was no one who embodied this truth more than the Rebbe, the spiritual heir of the Baal Shem Tov, who transformed the above insight into one of the great Jewish revolutions of modern times.
He inherited a people who had every reason to become defensive. The Holocaust had reduced European Jewry to ashes. Assimilation was accelerating across the West. Jewish confidence was fragile. Many predicted not only the disintegration of traditional Judaism, but the slow fading of the Jewish future itself.
The Rebbe saw the very same reality. Yet he refused to inhabit the story of decline. Where others saw exhaustion, he saw untapped reservoirs of strength. Where others saw disruption, he saw unprecedented opportunity. Where others saw a generation drifting away, he saw souls waiting to be awakened.
He did not allow the Jewish people to define themselves by the tragedies they had endured. He invited them to define themselves by the future they were capable of creating.
His revolution was not merely organisational. It was psychological and spiritual. Rather than reminding Jews only what they must not become, he helped them discover who they already were – a soul, "an actual part of G-d above," carrying within it infinite dignity and infinite potential.
He understood that people don’t become larger when someone constantly points out their flaws but when someone believes in them even more than they believe in themselves.
Perhaps that explains one of the most remarkable facts of Jewish life over the past 75 years. When many predicted contraction, the Rebbe spoke only of expansion. When others counted losses, he counted possibilities. When others built walls, he built bridges. When others saw a shrinking Jewish world, he imagined thousands of emissaries carrying Torah, hope and compassion to every corner of the globe.
He played offence. And in doing so, he changed the Jewish landscape.
This brings us to the challenge of the current Jewish moment. The raging resurgence of antisemitism has understandably shaken many Jews. The instinct is deeply human. Withdraw. Keep your head down. Make yourself smaller. Play defence.
But history teaches a profound lesson. The Jewish people have never secured their future by disappearing. We survived Egypt by walking into freedom. We survived Babylon by building new centres of Torah. We survived centuries of exile by creating schools, synagogues and communities wherever we went.
And after the Holocaust, when despair seemed the only reasonable response, the Rebbe called upon Jews not to retreat from the world but to engage it more deeply than ever before. Build another school. Light another menorah. Open another Jewish centre. Teach another child. Invite another Jew to do a Mitzvah.
He understood that the answer to darkness is not invisibility. It is visibility of another kind. The visible presence of courage. Of hope. Of Jewish joy. The Rebbe believed that every Jew is a builder.
Every mitzvah enlarges the Jewish future. Every act of kindness widens the circle of light. Every expression of Jewish pride pushes back the darkness just a little further.
Our task is not merely to defend yesterday. It is to build tomorrow.
For the greatest answer to those who seek to intimidate us is not that we endure. It is that we continue to create. To learn. To teach. To celebrate. And to bring more light into G-d's world. Because that has always been the Jewish way.
And, in the end, light will always prevail over darkness.
Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson is the Rabbi of Beit Baruch and executive director of Chabad of Belgravia, London
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