One tribal prince each day, one tribal prince each day, shall present his offering for dedication of the altar. (Bamidbar 7:11)

Every day for twelve days, one leader of each tribe brought an offering to dedicate the altar. Every leader brought the same exact offering. Commentaries point out that they could have brought something different each day, but they wanted to show that they weren’t competing. It wasn’t about one being better than the other.

There’s a story of two different Olympic track and field races. I should note that I do not know if these stories are true, but they still teach an amazing lesson.

In the first, while a woman is running a race, she trips and falls. Quickly, the trainers run onto the track to pick up the downed runner to remove her from the track. They did this because the other runners in the race continued racing and would have trampled her if she was not removed so they could win.

The second race was with the Special Olympics. During one of the sprinting races, one of the racers fell down. According to one version of the story, all of the racers stopped to help this racer up. According to another version (and it seems like this one is more accurate), only two racers stopped and helped the runner who tripped. Either way, these other runners showed that there are more important things than winning a race.

Someone was recently telling me about this cooking show on TV. The contestants need to pick out all of their ingredients first and then they cannot pick out any more ingredients while they are cooking the dish. One time, one of the women realized that she forgot a stick of butter. She saw that one of the other contestants had three sticks of butter and begged her for one. The other woman refused. At this point, a different contestant threw her a stick of butter and said, “Here, use this one.” The show then showed an interview with this man who threw the stick of butter. He said, “I don’t think I’m going to lose because of a stick of butter, but if I do, at least I can sleep at night.”

Competitions are great. I enjoy a good sports event, but winning isn’t everything. You can be a champion even if you don’t finish first. Those racers that stopped during the Special Olympics are the real champions. They realize that there is more to life than standing on a medal platform. It’s nice to have a trophy case with a medal in it. It is even nicer to have a great chesed in Hashem’s trophy case (which is the one which really counts).

Good Shabbos!
-y.e.s.
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