My Experience with the World Cup

Rabbi Eliezer Shemtov

This past Sunday, after the winners for the 2026 World Cup had been determined, I called an Argentine friend to see how he was doing.

He told me that he was devastated.

“Why did G-d do this?!” he asked.

I replied, “I am not G-d’s accountant, and I am certainly not His lawyer. I do not know why G-d does what He does, nor why He refrains from doing what He refrains from doing. But I do not think ‘Why did this happen?’ is the most important question; I think the more important question is, ‘What now? What can we learn from this?’”

He asked me what I thought the lesson was.

I responded by asking him whether he knew the story of Jonah.

“Of course,” he said. “He was the prophet that was swallowed by a fish.”

“Correct,” I replied, “but that is only one part of the story.”

After Jonah left Nineveh, having delivered the prophecy with which G-d had entrusted him, he sat outside the city to see what would happen as a result of his prophecy. G-d caused a tall plant to grow and provide him with shade, and Jonah was very happy. But the next day, G-d sent a worm that damaged the plant, causing it to wither. When the sun rose, the heat became so intense that Jonah fainted. He was deeply distressed.

G-d asked him: “Does the loss of that plant upset you so much?”

Jonah replied: “Yes! I am deeply distressed—even to the point of death.”

G-d said, “You are distressed over a plant that you neither planted nor cultivated. It appeared overnight and disappeared just as quickly, yet its loss affects you deeply. How, then, could I not care about the great city of Nineveh, with its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants?”

This story invites us to reflect on what truly deserves our concern.

And this brings us back to the World Cup.

It is perfectly understandable to feel disappointed because Argentina lost, I told my friend. Sports awaken powerful emotions, and that is part of what makes them so compelling. Your sadness is a sign of your sensitivity. Sensitivity is a very important human quality, I pointed out.

But once the disappointment begins to fade, ask yourself: What else deserves this same level of concern?

Consider that you could not cause Argentina to win, nor did you cause the defeat. Nevertheless, an outcome that did not depend on you affected you so profoundly.

Perhaps that emotional energy should be redirected toward another kind of competition—one in which your actions really matter and in which you can genuinely influence the outcome.

What competition am I referring to?

This is where a teaching of Maimonides comes into the picture.

Maimonides teaches us to see ourselves, and the world as a whole, as perfectly balanced between merit and guilt. One good deed, one kind word, or even one positive thought can tip the balance toward good—not only for you, but for the entire world.

We often think:

“What difference can anything I do, say, or think in the privacy of my own life possibly make? I am only one person among eight billion.”

Maimonides invites us to think differently.

Imagine a scale with four billion people on one side and four billion people on the other. It is perfectly balanced. Now imagine that you must decide which side to join.

Your decision will tip the entire scale. You will become the deciding factor. For all of humanity.

Should this sound too abstract or fanciful, think again about the World Cup. The entire tournament was ultimately decided by the action of a single player who managed to score a goal.

The cosmic struggle between good and evil works in a similar way. Because the scales are perfectly balanced, the conclusion of history may depend on one person’s action, one person’s word, or one person’s thought.

And that person could be you, through the decision currently before you.

There is one more lesson that we can draw from the World Cup.

The prophets describe a state of the world in which, at the conclusion of that Cosmic Match, Mashiach will come and inspire and elevate all of humanity. Will that really happen? How will Mashiach inspire the entire world?

Le’s return to the World Cup.

Billions of people focused their attention on a single individual: Argentina’s captain, Lionel Messi.

Just as the world could focus its attention last Sunday on a great athlete and be inspired by him, how much more so will this be possible when the day comes that all humanity turns its attention toward one leader—Mashiach—who will unite it not around a soccer match, but around goodness, justice, peace, and the knowledge of G-d.

And while we wait for that day to arrive, each of us has a part to play. We do not need to wait for a packed stadium or a championship final to make a difference. Every decision, every word, and every action is an opportunity that can determine the final outcome of thousands of years of effort.

We may not be able to decide who wins the World Cup, but we can decide what kind of world we help to build.

We need to leave it all on the field!