Q:
May a yeshiva bochur listen to sports?
A:
I’ll add to it another question. May a yeshiva bochur stand on his head? He can if he wants to, but he’s a meshugene if he does.
What are sports? It’s so silly. What’s it our business if the Yanks and the Mets hit the baseball? It’s so meshuge. A goyishe meshugene velt. The headlines, Yanks! It’s so silly. It shows how empty the gentile world is.
And therefore, we have to take a lesson from that and say, are they any example for us? בָּרוּךְ אֱלֹקֵינוּ שֶׁהִבְדִּילָנוּ מִן הַתּוֹעִים – He separated us from these lost neshamos.
(December 1999)
Q:
Is there anything wrong if a frum yeshiva bochur goes to sports games once in a while if he’s careful to watch himself?
A:
I don’t know what that means, “careful to watch himself.”
And the answer is that it certainly is wrong for a yeshiva bochur to go to sports games. A yeshiva bochur – not only a yeshiva bochur – I think that every frum Jew should disassociate himself from public amusements. Some people are so Americanized that they identify with the American scene. You must know that all these things are places where people are victimized. What a stupidity to come and watch other people getting exercise! And you pay money for it! Isn’t it stupid to be enthusiastic as people are skating or playing lacrosse or basketball or soccer, whatever it is, and you are paying to watch it?
If you could get on the field yourself and kick the ball around – at least you get exercise. But you’re sitting on a chair and all you’re doing is getting hemorrhoids from sitting on a hard chair. And they’re getting money from you. So you’ve been victimized. Don’t be a fool to just join in the herd that’s being led to the slaughter.
In general, even though there’s nothing wrong in a game – it’s stupid, it’s meaningless; who cares who wins – but the mere fact that you identify with the herd, that fact that you’re being stampeded by the herd, is a tragedy. You lose your identity – you’re the Am Hanivchar, the chosen nation; you have different things. You’re not interested in that garbage.
And therefore when you go to a rock and roll gathering or other music – even kosher places – it’s so silly to be part of a big crowd sitting and listening to syncopations, to noise, banging on the drum and blowing on the flute. What is it? It’s music that means nothing. There’s no ideal to it.
And so, we should disassociate ourselves from the mob of non-thinkers. Even from the Orthodox mob. We are expected to be הֶן עָם לְבָדָד יִשְׁכֹּן – Behold the nation that dwells alone, וּבַגּוֹיִם לֹא יִתְחַשָּׁב – and we’re not counted among the goyim (Bamidbar 23:9).
Stay away from the goyim and just do what the Am Yisroel does. If you want to go to a place where there’s singing, then go to a rebbeh; go to a big melaveh malka where a rebbeh is sitting at a table and maybe five hundred Jews are sitting there and they’re singing together. That’s something you could do if you want. I myself prefer to sit and learn Motzei Shabbos. But if you like a melaveh malka, go to a melaveh malka; there’s plenty of places to go. Go to places where Jews are sitting and hearing Torah or learning Torah. Identify with Klal Yisroel! Don’t identify with anybody else.
Therefore, a yeshiva bochur who’s going to the sports game, and even though he’s “watching himself,” – he doesn’t talk to anybody, he just sits and enjoys – but that man is making himself into a zero. And it’s a tragedy when you can become a million, and instead you become a zero.
(November 1984)
