Setting a higher goal

Setting a higher goal Udi Sharabani Hey, you liberals out there. No, soccer matches featuring the Chelsea and Barcelona clubs will not be broadcast in Israel tonight (Wednesday) or next week. They won't be broadcast on the sports channels or on the Hot and Yes cable channels. In other words, you can watch the games on some channel that isn't showing black-and-white Holocaust films or a picture of a memorial candle next to lists of victims' names. Thanks to the Internet, there is no technical obstacle to doing so. Everyone can find links to his or her favorite sports channels and a simple cable will connect your computer to your plasma television set. Basically, you can watch anything you want on TV even if local broadcasters are not airing it. Now that we have laid out, and even dismissed, the technical obstacles to watching the game, we can discuss the moral dimension of watching entertainment shows on Holocaust Remembrance Day or Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror. If in the past, the obstacles were technical, today technological progress allows us to address the morality of the issue. It seems paradoxical: As the world progresses and becomes increasingly modern (too modern, I would say), morality and ethics have been shunted out of the public discourse. Nevertheless, progress is what has allowed us to deliberate on the issue of watching television or consuming various forms of entertainment on Israel's solemn memorial days. The slate has been wiped clean. No one can be coerced anymore as there is a solution to every technical problem. The issue is simple: In a single week we have Holocaust Remembrance Day, followed by Memorial Day for Israel's soldiers. These are two important days for both religious and secular Jews. In fact, both are secular "holidays," as opposed to religious ones. In other words, when it comes to these two days, one can't fall back on the old habit of crying religious coercion. Nevertheless, some of you liberal secularists out there protested when you heard that the two aforementioned soccer games would not be broadcast on Israeli television. Two consecutive matches, one week apart, home and away games. Furthermore, one of the teams is Barcelona. Barcelona is considered an "Israeli" team by most Israelis, not just die-hard soccer fans. It's gotten to the point where we are baffled when an Israeli backs any other European team. In fact, nothing will happen if the matches are not broadcast. There are more important things in life, like our past, which connects to our present and our future. After all, how many days a year does our nation have to stop flipping the channels, to remember, to reflect, to understand, not to just mindlessly post links on Facebook that hinder real discussion? This is not an issue of freedom of speech or democracy, buzzwords that people invoke but also use as a fig leaf. No, the issue is where our society goes from here. In times like these, any attempt to change the nature of Israel's solemn memorial days could create a fissure in Israeli society, and provide an ominous harbinger of things to come. You know what? Let's put it in terms of soccer. How many days does our nation have to play – not just to win but to learn something in the process? http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1747