5 Reasons why Cristiano Ronaldo is a better footballer than Lionel Messi.

Let me start by saying this: Cristiano Ronaldo has twice been accused of rape. While neither of those accusations ended up in court, this means that he is an alleged rapist, and more than anything else, I believe that we must protect women from rape. All should be done to bring these accusations to court so that justice can be served. Nevertheless, regardless of that issue, I think the footballing career of Cristiano Ronaldo is a separate subject which can be discussed without every element of it being placed in relation to the rape allegation(s). So - of course this is subjective - and also pointless. And of course I am biased. And of course, it is actually just plain wrong to focus even more attention on professional footballers. So with all that out the way, let's continue.

1. On September 1, 2021, Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 110th and 111th International goals becoming outright the world's leading male international goal scorer. He broke a record that most thought could not be broken because it was made up of hat-tricks against Samoa and Micronesia, and goals scored in 32-0 wins. His goals include those scored against the world's best teams. Lionel Messi has scored 76 international goals and is unlikely to score another 35.

2. Ronaldo started off in Portugal but chose a challenge and went to Man United, then Madrid and then Juventus. He won the league in three of the four biggest leagues in the world. He constantly sought new challenges. Messi spent his whole career until this summer in Barcelona and has won nothing with any other club.

3. Until this past summer, Messi had never turned it on for Argentina. For Barcelona he was wonderful, but until this past summer he had never won a trophy with Argentina. And while he has finally won an international trophy, the fact that Argentina have won the Copa America after six attempts with him in the team is simply a reversion to (below) their normal standard. Argentina are expected to win the Copa America at least once every six times, being the second best team on the continent and the tournament being played only between 10 teams. Ronaldo on the other hand has led Portugal to be European Champions (ahead of 55 other teams), for the first time in their history. Argentina had won the Copa America 14 times (more than any other country, even Brazil) before their longest dry spell of 28 years, most of which corresponded with Messi's international career). He also led Portugal to win the inaugural Nations cup and while still a youngster was part of the team to reach the final in 2004.

4. Ronaldo scores when it really matters. Messi is a flat track bully. All 9 of Ronaldo's international hat-tricks have come in competitive games. Only 2 of Messi's 6 international hat-tricks have come in competitive games. In international friendlies, when it barely matters, Ronaldo has scored only 19 goals in 51 matches (a little over once every 3rd game). Messi on the other hand has scored 34 goals in 47 games (about twice as high a conversion rate than Ronaldo in FRIENDLIES). In World cup qualifiers on the other hand, Ronaldo has scored 33 goals in 43 matches (about 3 goals every four matches) while Messi has scored 23 in 51 (less than one every 2 games). While Messi has a higher conversion rate than Ronaldo in league games against the likes of Real Betis and Osasuna and Elche, Ronaldo far outstrips Messi in the Champions league games against the likes of Bayern Munich, Milan, Liverpool and Chelsea.

5. Perhaps most significantly though - more than all the analysis of the statistics is the simple fact that Ronaldo is the product of exceptional hard work (allied with natural athleticism and skill, obviously). Messi on the other hand would never have made it to be a professional footballer if he hadn't been pumped full of human growth hormones by manipulative parents and managers. Yes - Messi has incredible skill, but his fame and fortune is built on the use of drugs. Ronaldo is renowned for staying late in training and obsessively practicing. As someone 10 cm (4 inches) shorter than Leo Messi, I thoroughly resent the idea that Messi's growth hormones were "medicinal". They were an aid to his athleticism, and as such should have been banned. He is not to blame - he was only a kid, but it unquestionably taints his whole career. Would he have been the player he is without them - we don't know, and whether the answer is yes or no - either way, it takes away from his achievement that his performances rely on drugs rather than his own skill and hard work.

For all these reasons, I am convinced that CR7 is a better footballer than Leo Messi, and I think it would be a tragedy if this year, after Ronaldo won the golden boot at the Euros (despite being knocked out in the second round) AND passed the record for the most international goals by a male footballer that he should not win his sixth ballon d'or to take him level with Messi.

Between Metaphor and Metamorphosis: Humanism and Transcendence in Jewish secular thought.

 

Between Metaphor and Metamorphosis:

Humanism and Transcendence in Jewish secular thought.

 

While religion has tended to attract scorn and criticism from many secular thinkers, it has also brought a kind of positive envy from others. The writer Alain De Botton, in his work, “Religion for Atheists”, sets out the ways in which Religion can teach secular culture about how to promote the good of society and the welfare of the individual, without any resort to a belief in G?d. De Botton’s approach is not far from what most adherents of “liberal” religion today would identify as their own practice. Certainly the end game is the same – a better, more perfect world. In the liberal Jewish lexicon, this is known as “Tikun Olam”, a slogan which has become ubiquitous and, certainly in the eyes of many critics, clichéd and meaningless. But the essence of this idea is very simple – it is what unites “liberal religion” with the rest of the ideological descendants of Enlightenment philosophy – the simple idea that our purpose in this world is to serve each other and the world – to make the world better. Proponents of Liberal Religion will assert that this service is one and the same as serving G?d, while the secular/atheist understanding posits this purpose as a replacement of traditional religion.

The humanist understanding of the world, which has deeply influenced all liberal religion posits that humanity is at the center of creation and that (whether or not a divine exists), only that which exists within the human realm should determine our actions and our motivations. While many within communities which profess Liberal Religion would argue strongly for the importance of the divine, the vast majority would not disagree with this basic principle: Our actions should be determined by what is in the best interests of humanity. (We shall leave aside for now the more recent development of a greater awareness of our responsibility to other species and the world as a whole – an important extra step, but one which does not fundamentally impact this issue). This secular, humanistic ethic, descended from the thought of Spinoza and Kant;  guides most liberal religious thought on ethics today. In this sense, “Liberal Religion” is much closer to “Secular Ethics” than it is to conservative or fundamentalist religion. Ethically, Conservative, Traditional or Religious communities are Theistic (G?d determines morality) while Liberal Religion and Secular Humanism are Humanistic (Human reason and experience determine morality).

Within this understanding – what is the need for Religion at all? Why do professors of Liberal Religion (those who profess it, not those who research or teach it) need “religion”? And what is “religion” for those whose ethics are not theistic? Within this modern context, it is possible to see that religion was always about far more than belief. It could be argued that without true belief (i.e. without the belief that there really is an omniscient, omnipresent, beneficent, omnipotent G?d), then religion is not religion. In this sense, “Liberal Religion” would be oxymoronic. But if we accept that religion was a machine of many parts – belief, ethics, practice, tradition, literature, ritual, community, etc….. then we can posit that religion can continue to function and thrive without one of those parts (even if it must adapt). The leaders of Liberal Religion essentially posit that the absolute faith of the fundamentalist in a G?d who created the world revealed their will to humanity and will judge and redeem humanity towards some endpoint is not necessary for religion to continue to thrive. Nevertheless, unlike the secular humanist, they desire the continuation of religion because, as De Botton points out, while we may have lost the faith in an Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Beneficent G?d, Religion can still be effective in framing our lives with meaning and purpose. In order to do this, Liberal Religion essentially takes the beliefs of traditional religion and creates metaphors from them.

The myths, which were understood as history within the context of traditional religion, become narratives or parables of meaning.  G?d goes from the Creator to a creation – a metaphor used to exhort us to our best possible behavior. Instead of “knowing” G?d – feeling G?d’s presence or being aware of (not believing in) G?d’s existence and demands of us, we “posit” G?d. Within the liberal religious paradigm, we “understand” (in a narrative, metaphorical sense) that G?d demands of us ethical behavior, without it being important if there really is a G?d who could make such demands.

The central axis of Liberal Religion, therefore, is Metaphor – but an unadmitted metaphor. The leadership of Liberal Religious communities are unwilling to admit that the G?d of their prayers is not real, or rather that the reality of this G?d is immaterial – what is important in Liberal Religion is not that G?d receives our worship or our sacrifice, but that we are changed by that worship or sacrifice, and in turn we change the communities around us and improve this beleaguered world. For this reason, Liberal Religious leaders who have dared to withdraw the curtain and reveal the metaphor have been largely shunned and exiled. Within the Jewish world, figures such as R. Mordechai Kaplan and R. Sherwin Wine are good examples of leaders who were often personally rejected for dangerously flirting with the idea of trying to wean their congregants from mythology, while the practical ideas that they advanced were widely accepted. Of course, choosing to take that giant leap, and cross that divide is liberating, and the widespread application, particularly of Kaplan’s practical advice to the Jewish community among religious leaders of all denominations shows just how valuable his theological audacity was. By freeing him to re-imagine Jewish community and Jewish creativity, Kaplan’s liberation from the mythological understanding of G-d ended up giving the world Reconstructionism (the idea, rather than the movement), which transformed Jewish community in North America, even while those who apply his thought deny its origin.

But even if Liberal Religion is willing to use G?d as a metaphor, and even if that metaphor is often protected, so that it uses the old mythology, while knowingly rejecting the old presuppositions of that mythology, to truly succeed, Liberal Religion must still acquire one more aspect of traditional religion which requires an old-school belief. Namely, Transcendence. Or Metamorphosis. The end-game of traditional religion and traditional Jewish religious belief is redemption. In Christian terms, this is usually understood as “Salvation”. In Hebrew “Geulah”. Geulah / Redemption is not subject to metaphor since it cannot be truly understood or posited but is a promise of an experience. The Jewish Liberal Theologian Hermann Cohen solved this problem by understanding Geulah, Redemption, or the Messianic Era as a receding horizon – something which was to be strived towards but not actually reached.

In a pre-shoah, pre-climate-crisis  world, where a belief in the progress of humanity towards a collective messianic age could still offer hope, Cohen’s receding horizon could work to grant Liberal religion a solid ground to promote a complete answer to a modern, cynical Jew who still wished to take part in religion without accepting the unacceptable. Cohen’s version of redemption promised a version of transcendence for those who were willing to buy into an optimistic understanding of the future. Between the horror of the shoah and the sobering reality of the climate crisis, no such optimistic understanding of the future exists, and as such, true, full, belief seems very difficult for the non-fundamentalist without offering some option of the transcendental.

For this I suggest a return to the roots of Liberal Religion – humanism. The journey to full humanity, the process of becoming fully human, of becoming the best possible version of ourselves is the religious goal. Metamorphosis is achieved when the process of liberal religion – of using the rituals and traditions of our people allow one to genuinely change oneself. Psychology and the liberation of the self from the “Klipa” (a Kabbalistic concept meaning the untrue shell) are in fact the redemption which is sought in liberal religion. We do not pray for the coming of Messiah or the rebuilding of the third temple, but rather that we should each rise again – within each of us there shall be a resurrection of those parts of us that have died – the desire to see good in the other, the belief in our fellow human beings. Each of us is our own Messiah – within each of us is the potential to redeem ourselves from the malaise of the physical world. Franz Kafka, in his work, Metamorphosis, begins with the image of his hero as a huge bug. This profound image of alienation – of an individual cut off from all that grounds them is an exact critique of the atomized reality of the late 58^th century. The beginning of this Jewish century began with the Shoah, and while the foundation of the state seemed to be an immediate response which restored order to the Jewish world, it was not the solution that many hoped it would be, and rather, we have seen the continuation of many terrible trends which have weakened communities and created a painful reality in which many individuals are more in need of salvation than ever before.

 

And so transcendence can be achieved – not just a posited transcendence forever receding on the horizon, but a bodily transcendence – a feeling of true transformation within the individual – a metamorphosis, achieved by becoming one’s best self. This is achieved through the use of ritual, in community, in reference to the nourishing myths of our tradition. None of these need to be accepted unthinkingly. All can be used while fully engaging our critical faculties, but we also need not block off the possibility of a secularly understood redemption. A redeeming of the individual from pain, sorrow, depression and torpor, not just through ethical acts, but through an honest engagement with the rituals and traditions of the people which can allow for a sense of relief in the individual, a sense of salvation, a metamorphosis.

#Dafyomi Brachot 38a-b Thought for the day

מוציא? המוציא?

Once again - what are we talking about?

Did G?d bring forth bread from the earth? Or DOES G?d bring forth bread from the earth? And what is the difference.

Do we still experience G?d in our lives? Is our relationship to G?d based on our own experience of the divine or on our tradition of remembering a time when that experience was part of the lived experience of our people.

If I struggle to conclude that I experience the divine in my everyday life today, should I revert to the version of the blessing which only attests to a past experience of divine providence? Or is the affirmation of G?d's action in the present a statement of faith that I believe despite the lack of evidence. That I am optimistic that this world has meaning, though it is beyond my perception?

In the end - even attesting to G?d's present in the past is a statement of faith - faith in our ancestors. The truth is that G?d was almost certainly no more present in their lives than in ours. We are not really concerned with whether G?d still acts in the world or only once acted in the world - but rather whether and how WE act. Will we keep searching for the divine? And more importantly will we keep bringing forth food to feed G?d's children who need it. And finally will we make sure that in future generations the earth will still be able to produce food so that someone in the future can wonder whether we experienced the divine, or lived in a G?dless world? If in the future our descendants still have the bread of the earth upon which to say a blessing, we will have brought a little G?dliness to this world.

#Dafyomi Brachot 37a-b Thought for the Day

Are breadcrumbs bread?
When does something cease to be what it is? When is it no longer that which it was when it was whole?
Is the thing broken into its parts no longer that thing?
Is the damaged thing, still the same thing?
Easy and unimportant when talking about things - terribly scary when talking about people. Is the person who no longer has the faculties that make us people still a person? And if so - what is it that makes us people? A crumb must still be bread, or else, nothing is inherently what it always was.

#Dafyomi Brachot 34a-b Thought for the day.

The Gabbai's Curse.

Never did I know that this was in the Talmud:

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: הָעוֹבֵר לִפְנֵי הַתֵּיבָה — צָרִיךְ לְסָרֵב. וְאִם אֵינוֹ מְסָרֵב — דּוֹמֶה לְתַבְשִׁיל שֶׁאֵין בּוֹ מֶלַח. וְאִם מְסָרֵב יוֹתֵר מִדַּאי — דּוֹמֶה לְתַבְשִׁיל שֶׁהִקְדִּיחַתּוּ מֶלַח. כֵּיצַד הוּא עוֹשֶׂה: פַּעַם רִאשׁוֹנָה — יְסָרֵב, שְׁנִיָּה — מְהַבְהֵב, שְׁלִישִׁית — פּוֹשֵׁט אֶת רַגְלָיו וְיוֹרֵד.

The mishna teaches that one who replaces a communal prayer leader who erred in the middle of the Amida prayer should not refuse when approached. The Gemara cites the general halakha with regard to proper conduct when one is approached to serve as prayer leader. The Sages taught in a baraita: One who is approached to pass before the ark to serve as prayer leader, for the sake of propriety should refuse, to avoid creating the impression that he is too eager. And if he does not refuse, but jumps at the opportunity, he is like cooked food without salt, which is to say that he acts in bad taste. However, if he refuses too much this is similarly inappropriate, as he is like cooked food that was ruined by too much salt. So how should he act? The appropriate conduct when approached to serve as communal prayer leader is as follows: When approached the first time, one should refuse; the second time, one should vacillate like a wick that has just begun to catch a flame but is not yet burning; and the third time, he should stretch his legs and descend before the ark.

But far more shocking - never did I realise that all the congregants in all the shuls I have ever gabbaied or rabbied have been aware of this piece of Gemarra - because clearly they all know it, and I just need to ask each of them three times to get them to do it. My mistake!

(The gripes and grouches of the annoyed Gabbai who can't get his congregants to volunteer for "honours"). 

#Dafyomi Brachot 52a-b Thought for the day

Can an Am ha'aretz be a waiter?
Once again one is forced to ask oneself - however did we end up discussing this, and who cares? Why is this important and what is going on?
The answer is not simple and I am not sure I understand fully the minds of Hillel and Shammai - but I think it has something to do with the way the rabbinical world saw itself. Are they a small sect with their own ways, and so everything needs to be done by one of their own? Or are they part of the Am - and thus all are welcome to be part of their meals, their celebrations and maybe even their learning? Going back to the sugya with regard to who should be allowed in the Beit Midrash - what is this saying? Why do we follow Shammai and not Hillel? Is it because in this case Shammai is the more lenient? Is he more lenient? What is Hillel's logic if he really does hold that an Am Ha'aretz can't wait on the meal of sages?
When I eat with friends - am I solely with them? Who is part of my meal? Is the waiter?
As always, the rabbis seem obsessed with boundaries (including the boundaries of the meal - mayim Ahronim). But what does that mean? Why are boundaries so important?
Is this once again an expression of the fragility of the Jewish people's position without sovereignty?
Or do we just not like mess and wasting food?

#Dafyomi Brachot 53a-b Thoughts/ Questions for the day

When does the life of a flame end and a new flame is born?
Is a flame created from another flame the same or different?
And what are we talking about when we talk about this? Are we really talking about the light inside of people and our own desperate hopes for immortality - perhaps if we ignite enough other souls in this world, then our light will never go out.
I am reminded of the short quote from Bamidbar Rabba:

אדם מדליק נר מנר, והנר דולק וחברו אינו חסר

A person light a candle from another candle and the candle is lit, and its fellow loses nothing.