Zionism and the Chargers

A Story of Faith

It’s hard to be a Chargers fan.

Every year, no matter what, the Chargers find a way to break your heart.

The Chargers are one of the losing-est teams in football.

In their 66 seasons, the Chargers have made it to the Super Bowl once, only to get absolutely demolished.

In my lifetime, the Chargers have done nothing but build good teams and get demolished in the playoffs.

It’s also hard to be a Zionist.

To be a Zionist is to believe that the Jewish people will escape from exile, that we will return to our homeland triumphantly, and that we will live to see an end to the millennia of Jewish oppression.

Our franchise has spent the vast majority of our 3000-some-odd seasons in the proverbial toilet.

Egyptian slavery, Babylonian captivity, Greek oppression, Roman genocide, Muslim dhimmitude, Christian libels, Spanish Inquisition, Russian pogroms, German annihilation, and Palestinian terrorism.

The history of this franchise has not been good.

A weaker fanbase would have given up a long time ago.

They would have thrown away their team-gear and joined up with whatever team was on the rise at the time.

In fact, many Jews have done that.

Some through conversion, some through intermarriage, and some through assimilation.

But the true Zionist fans have never abandoned this team, no matter how bad things looked.

Theodore Herzl watched the Dreyfus Affair with his own two eyes and said, “we can still win this game.”

Menachem Begin survived the Holocaust in the Gulag, and the first thing he did when he got out was to go to Israel and start training.

Holocaust survivors left the Displaced Persons camps, got off the boat in Tel Aviv, and asked for a rifle before they could even speak Hebrew.

Last night’s Chargers game was an absolute disgrace.

Simply the worst game of football I have ever seen.

It was heartbreaking. Simply heartbreaking.

But, in our 66 seasons as a franchise, we have gone through far worse.

It’s a bad time to be a Chargers fan, but it’s always been a bad time to be a Chargers fan.

It’s also a bad time to be a Zionist.

But that’s nothing new.

Zionism is an ideology of faith. A reasonable person would bet against the Zionists. A rational thinker would look at our history and say, there is no way the Jews could ever actually escape from the chains of exile. There’s just no way.

But we’re believers.

We believe in the possibility that next season will be better, even though we have no evidence to support that.

We operate on faith alone.

I am a Zionist and a Chargers fan – these past few years have been absolutely brutal, on both fronts.

But I believe.

I believe that the Jewish people will escape from exile. I believe that we will re-establish ourselves with true sovereignty in our homeland. And I believe that the Chargers will win a Super Bowl in my lifetime.

And I believe, with a perfect faith, in the coming of Moshiach.

After last night, it really seems like the only thing that could possibly bring the Chargers back to the Super Bowl is Moshiach.

But I’m a believer.

It’s hard to believe, but we do it anyway.

Last night, I watched our quarterback get sacked, over and over again.

But he kept getting up. He kept pulling himself off the turf and walking back into the huddle to do it all over again.

It was not fun to watch, but it was inspiring.

How many times will a man get hit before he just lays down and refuses to get up again?

I don’t know.

I’m a Zionist, and a Chargers fan – I only know what it’s like to get hit and to get back up again.

It’s been a tough few years, and it will probably be another tough few years, but it’s always been tough for us.

And all of that suffering has only made us tougher.

So, for the Chargers, there’s always next season.

Another season to get excited, to build up our hope, and to have our hopes dashed in the playoffs.

And then there will be another season after that to do the same.

But, eventually, we will win.

Why?

Simply because we believe.

We believe in the Chargers, we believe in Israel, and we believe in faith itself.

It’s no fun, but it’s what we do.

~

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai

(And Go Bolts)