When I was a kid I loved to read about the Olympics. I particularly admired the swimmers as that was a favorite sport of mine. It was only years later that I found out that my parents had been approached by a swim coach asking if they would be willing to let me go to California and train. I was that fast, they said. But my parents turned it down, knowing that my life and indeed the life of the family, would have been much different. What would have been my choice? I come down on both sides of the issue I guess, wondering what might have been but in the end, but I am glad for the life I have led, for the family and friends I have, for the intersections of my life with so many, for the joy I had in teaching and in working with my educational kids.
But what of the Olympics? Are we all satisfied with what their evolutionary path has been? I love watching the Olympics. I record a great deal of it and enjoy the opening ceremony, of course with great attention paid to the American and the Israeli contingents. Yet I am not sure that what the Olympics have come to be is what they should be. Yes, there is sportsmanship in many areas. Yes, there is the joy of competition, the challenge and the great thrill when one lives up to a challenge. Friendships have been made and the contingents mass into one unit at the closing ceremony, but still, I wonder.
The Olympics has always been tinged with problems and these problems seem to never go away. For example, much is being made this year about the 1936 Berlin Games and whether we should have attended. The answers come down on both sides again, but I think we should not have gone but hey, I was not even a thought in anyone's mind at that point! My parents to be were not even married yet! They might have just met.
When the Olympic committee and the USOC in specific decided to attend with Avery Brundage leading the pack, it set an example that was followed down through the years. In 1972 when the Israeli athletes were brutally and viciously murdered by Arab terrorists (so tired of that already) and their potential rescue was messed up by the Germans - the Germans! - who refused to allow the Israelis to do the job, the world was glued to the TV screens. The joy that rocketed through Israel, the dancing in the streets when it was erroneously given out that the hostages were safe and the awful truth coming to light that not only were they not safe, but were dead, blown up in the helicopter, well, that rocked the Jewish communities all over the world. Even today every time I hear the Olympics sound on TV I feel a shudder in my heart.
And today, in Brazil, I read that there is great happiness at the fact that the rowers of the Olympics have learned to dodge the filth in the waters of their venue! I read that the various arenas and lodgings are not ready and the opening is Friday night and the athletes are there already or on their way. I read that the opening ceremony is supposed to be amazing - but what of the rest of it? What of the threats of terrorism, with the chief nutjob of ISIS encouraging one and all to come and have a bit of explosive fun, kill a few athletes and best of all is to kill Israeli and American athletes and the acme of that is to make sure they are Jews. And I wonder, though I know that of late the Americans have been advising and training the Brazilians, how much good will it do? Will we have, G-d forbid, another Olympics where death comes to visit? Will we have another Olympics where the committee will ignore those who have been slaughtered as they did in 1972 and as they continue to do till today?!
And what of all those athletes who train for this not because of the joy in it or for the challenge but because they have a clear eyed vision of the endorsements and the millions of dollars pouring in should they win gold. And today we have athletes who are caught in the doping scandal, actually nothing new in Olympic history, yet it still breaks one's heart for are these young people meant to represent all that is good and pure, all the hopes we have for and of the future. And yet a Bulgarian athlete tells a Jewish athlete that it is too bad that Hitler did not gas more Jews and governments dope their own unknowing athletes (sing out to Putin, Trump's good friend), and we have athletes backing out due to the risk of the Zika virus. And you know what? I do not blame them one bit.
So what will these Olympics be? How will they turn out? Will we be able to avoid tragedies of whatever kind? Will the true spirit of it rise to the surface or will it be forced down by filth and hate? I am hoping against hope that it will all turn out okay, be an Olympics that will surprise all with its smoothness and its high moments, the drama of the Olympics coming through. That is my heart talking but my head is telling me otherwise and I so hope my heart wins out.
Sports is exciting. Competition is bracing and encourages excellence. The Olympics creates ties among nations but..... and but again. Anyone else nervous out there? Anyone else crossing all fingers and toes and praying that all goes well, that security works, that there are no tragedies except in the heart of an athlete who did not achieve his/her gold? Watch, enjoy and marvel and pray. That is all we can do at the moment and let us please, please, not have to endure the horror of 1972, not again, Lord, not again. The circles are for life - not death.
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