The Paris 2024 Olympics are an event that refreshes the entire planet. Just like the world football championship or some global sporting event, these events refresh the inhabitants of all countries in the world.
Competition and the desire to win, thanks to the effort and associated discipline, result in national motivation, a spirit of unity and camaraderie, thanks to which the best of collective energies are connected.
The Olympic competition seen objectively does not represent any territorial gain for whoever wins a medal. Nor for the country or countries that sweep the medal table. The old criterion that endorsed a political system based on its Olympic performance has become somewhat outdated. It has not disappeared, but it has lost importance. Yes, of course, the Olympic competition unleashes an important economic movement around the host country, the sports brands, the sponsors.
The 2024 olympics that have just ended have taken place at a time of great global tension. The war in Ukraine, with no signs of ending, with everything associated with it. The war in Gaza, which is not over, and Iran's announcement about an imminent attack on Israel. The electoral debate in the United States of America. The volatility of financial markets.
In every country there is some circumstance that bothers, worries or threatens. The Olympics result in a kind of healthy escape. This is what happens in normal countries or countries with relatively normal life. This is not the case of the State of Israel.
Israel is experiencing a war that has lasted more than ten months. With 120 citizens kidnapped in Gaza. With the northern front of the country subject to daily bombing, and some one hundred thousand displaced from the area. With a serious and credible announcement of an upcoming attack from Iran and Lebanon, perhaps from other latitudes as well. With nerves on edge, the local news programs open their stellar broadcast reporting on the performance of the Israeli delegation in Paris 2024. At the time of writing this note, there were seven medals in what constitutes an unprecedented achievement. The story of each category, participant and medal, told and celebrated, refreshes at times a tense atmosphere that does not decline in intensity.
When you see and analyze the approach of the Israeli population towards its athletes and vice versa, you can perceive that Israel is above all a big family. That argue and fight among themselves, but that suffer the pain collectively and celebrate the successes and achievements of their representatives in the same way. Seeing this, a deep sadness shakes us when we realize the cruelty that war means, the irreducible positions, the little consideration for human lives and the suffering of people.
The Olympics end and the Jews prepare to commemorate the saddest date on their calendar. The same date on which the temples of Jerusalem were destroyed, the date on which the most resounding horrors that occurred in addition to the destruction are recounted: exile, exile, pogroms, climactic episodes during the Second World War, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain …let's stop counting. It is the 9th of Av that reminds us of the most tragic thing in our history.
The temples of Jerusalem were destroyed for a reason that still exists today, a reason that prevents their rebuilding for a third chance. Something that would mean having the Divine Presence in a very perceptible way on this planet and among the nations of the world. The gratuitous hatred between leaders was the cause of the destruction of the first temple, a cause that extended to not only the leaders in the case of the second. The gratuitous hatred of our days is the reason for so many and varied confrontations, for so many senseless wars, deaths and desolation.
For Jews, these days are not a good omen. It is not a matter of perceptions or superstitions, it is rather a matter of cold statistics, numbers that do not lie. Israel, the Jewish State, waits nervously and patiently for Iran's attack on its territory from one moment to the next, precisely in these designated and selected days of somewhat defective luck. Hoping that nothing as serious as what could happen doesn't happen.
In this environment of war and pressure, of loneliness and tension, of much fear and faith, in some strange way Israel continues and celebrates its Olympic participation... like a normal country.
Like a normal country living in a situation that is too abnormal.
Elias Farache S.