Contrary to what many people think, the Hasidic idea of being an observant Jew does not imply completely separating oneself from the world around oneself or, as they say in Argentina, "living in a bubble," but quite the opposite: being involved in the world. But always a step above.
It's like the idea of shoes. We could easily go through life barefoot. People say we wear shoes to protect our feet from the various things we might encounter, but the deeper perspective is that we walk through the world, always a little higher up. Our feet don't touch the ground. But we are on the ground.
Introduction done, these days in the city of La Plata are very special moments for those supporters of the Estudiantes de La Plata club, since said team won a very important tournament: The Copa Libertadores.
Now, many might think that, as I wrote before, this is not a topic for an editorial by an Orthodox rabbi, much less a Hasidic one! What importance does football have? But the truth is, as I mentioned before, we are in the world, we live in the world.
That doesn't mean we get emotionally involved with unimportant things, but it does mean we learn lessons for our service to God from the events of everyday life.
Furthermore, there is a talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in which he explains what we learn from football. The idea is this: in football there are two goals, one ball, and two teams. The ball represents the world, one goal is holiness while the other is its opposite, and the two teams are the Divine soul and the Animal soul, eternally striving to get the ball into their desired goal.
I clearly remember when I was studying at the Yeshiva (Jewish studies institute). Every now and then, we would go out as a group to a field to relax. And what would we do? We would play soccer! The image of our Rosh Yeshiva (Head of the institute), Rabbi Zalman Dubinsky, sitting on the sidelines watching us play and taking notes in a notebook, is unforgettable. At the end of the game, we would sit in a circle around him, and, looking in his notebook, he would tell us the lessons about serving God that he had learned from the match.
Congratulations, students! The main thing to think about is: what now? How are we going to become better people because of this?