The Game of LIFE

“The Game of LIFE” Sermon

Friday, May 31, 2013 ~ Parashat Sh'lach Lecha

My kids love board games, especially games that involve money—classic family games like Monopoly and Life. Now what’s interesting, is that like in all competitive games, they instinctively are trying to spin or roll high numbers to get around the board quickly, but ‘unlike’ most games, Monopoly doesn’t have a ‘race to the finish’, it ends when everyone but one player goes bankrupt. This could go on for days. And the game of “Life”—well that ends when everyone reaches retirement, the finish line, but no matter how fast or slow you get there doesn’t matter, because no one is rewarded for retiring first, and no one is penalized for getting to the end of their “Life” last. Theoretically there is no rush.

So, if you remember the rules of the game, you spin the spinner and little by little as you progress along the road of ‘life’ in your little plastic pink car, you are asked to make decisions, like going to college, choosing a career, getting married, buying a home, having children…and that is the game. But the game is also filled with other kinds of things that you do during your lifetime. Like you change jobs, win the lottery, get involved in a lawsuit. But there are other spaces on the board, where if you land, the tile may read, ‘helped construct a homeless shelter’, volunteered in a soup kitchen-- and then when you land on these spaces, you pick a tiny card that says “LIFE” on one side, and the side that you are not supposed to peek at has a dollar amount. You don’t look at this until the end of the game, when you count it up with your other assets that you accrue over your lifetime.

Now, as my children race and rush to speedily get to ‘retirement’, I find myself insisting that they slow down and pay attention to everyone else’s moves so we can enjoy the game together—and I find myself saying things that sound like: Coby slow down, its not how fast you get to the end of your life, but how you live it, it’s what you do along the way, it’s how you play the game of LIFE that makes it fun for all of us. Maybe you’ll be a manicurist, maybe you’ll have 6 children—because that’s all that will fit in the little car.

Of course, now it’s occurring to me that this game has profound moral and Jewish implications. It’s not how fast you live your life, but the process and the quality, what you do along the way, the relationships that you nurture. Pirkei Avot, chapter 2 says: “Which is the right path for man to choose for himself? Whatever is harmonious for the one who does it, and harmonious for mankind.” As I play, I find myself more and more interested in the little LIFE cards —the ones that my kids rush past without reading, the tiles that credit you for doing something helpful or selfless for society.  

So you do something meaningful that helps someone else, and you understand you won’t get paid for it now, but at the end of your lifetime suddenly it has value, and it is counted as part of your ‘worth’. Pirkei Avot, chapter 4 asks: “Who is wise? One who learns from every one. Who is rich? One who is satisfied with what he has. Who is honorable, one who honors all of his fellow man.”

Now… I’m excited and I’m yelling to my kids—these cards, these are mitzvoth!

It turns out this is a deeply Jewish game that draws from the best teachings of our tradition. You do something meaningful for others, something in your free time, something you feel compelled to do--Judaism calls it tzedakah, justice, righteousness, and it changes the ‘game’ for people. It is an obligation, like in the game of ‘Life’, you do it simply because you landed there. It is an obligation, part of our life, that is the real meaning of mitzvoth, from tzav, that which we are commanded to do. In fact, our teachings instruct us to “run to do even the smallest mitzvah, as doing a mitzvah brings on another mitzvah”.

You 7^th graders who are here tonight, you stand teetering before Jewish adulthood—you are going to be asked more and more frequently to spin the dial yourself. Please don’t go home and bury yourselves in front of your computer or the TV—instead, spin the dial: continue to study and deepen your ties to Jews here and in Israel, help someone who is in need—choose things that don’t reap monetary value now, but give you greater rewards as you mature.  Start to pursue what your game of life will look like, collect as many tiles as you can, ask questions and have wonderful experiences along the way.

So I will say again what I say to Ben and Coby—don’t rush-- how we play the game of LIFE is what makes it so much fun. Turn the spinner slowly.

We say about the Torah, that everything is in it, and by continuing to turn it and turn it, we can examine and learn from its wisdom, and continue to apply these teachings to our life. Just like this crazy spinner on this game that is not so silly after all:

TURN IT AND TURN IT AND TURN IT, TURN IT AND TURN IT AROUND, EVERYTHING IS IN IT, EVERYTHING IS IN IT, TURN IT AND TURN IT AROUND….

MUCH WISDOM HAVE I LEARNED FROM MY TEACHERS, MORE HAVE I LEARNED FROM MY FRIENDS, BUT FROM MY STUDENTS, HAVE I LEARNED THE MOST OF ALL.