My First Wrestling Match



I recently had my first wrestling match.

I didn’t actually wrestle.

Matthew, a proud graduate of Hebrew School has been taking up wrestling in High School.

He’s #16 in the state.

I’m lucky that he’s my friend, cuz he’s a tough cookie.

I found out that he was wrestling #2 in the state and could take the title for himself.

I dropped everything and zoomed over to put on tefillin with him.

“The nations of the world will see that the name of G-d is upon you, and they will fear you. These are the head tefillin”- Talmud.

That’s what I told him.

“May your opponent melt in front of you!”

Later that evening, I figured he could use some moral support, so I took Moussia with me to the match.

It was a packed house, and lots of energy in the room.

It’s been almost 25 years since I’ve been to a sporting event, and my first wrestling match.

I forgot how “crazy” it gets at these events.

The Rebbe taught us to channel that “craziness” in to holiness.

That’s why Natanya & I moved to Temecula (pretty crazy isn’t it?).

At any rate, Matt had a three minute match.

It was rough.

His opponent was #2 in the state for a reason.

He was a really tough cookie.

Matthew gave it his all, but his opponent won (maybe he put on tefillin too?)

Consoling a friend or student after a loss is not easy.

Can’t say I did a great job.

At least I didn’t talk too much.

I thought about how depressed Matt must be.

Losing an opportunity to get the #2 title.

And then I remembered the Tanya of the Day.

It was about wrestling.

We’re taught to pay attention to life and find connections between the weekly Torah portion and things that are happening in our lives.

I try to pay attention to the other daily study too.

The lesson was about the importance of morale.

If one wrestler is lethargic and depressed.

His opponent has a good chance of winning.

Even if he’s weaker.

Same thing with serving G-d.

G-d really believes in us.

And has big expectations from us.

If we’re depressed, it’s 10X harder to do the right thing.

Many sins are born from depression.

So we have to keep our morale up.

And Tanya gives guidance on how to do it.

May we continue to be happy, joyous and succeed in winning the wrestling match against our yetzer hara (evil inclination).

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