Playing to win...

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One of the most useful things about sports is the rich variety of truisms it lends us.
One line you will hear every so often if you follow sports is "They're playing not to lose.."
I'll briefly try to describe a scenario.
You have 2 hockey teams playing a playoff series. The team that comes into the series heavily favored is suddenly down 2 games to none. During Game 3 you start discerning that instead of the favorite playing with a drive to win, the players are playing not to lose. You see fear as the driving motivating force. They're not as loose and confident. It's the job of the coach to change that mindset and get the players to play to win.

I think that when it comes to Chinuch these days our community is playing not to lose.
We're gripped with this fear of our children going off the derech or rebelling in some form or another that we're constantly on the defensive.
I see parents allowing their young teenaged sons to do as they please.
I see people afraid of adding "too many restrictions".
I see a generation that has given up on Idealism, on striving to push ourselves and our children to greatness.
I see parents afraid of meting out punishments to youngsters.

In other words we've ceased playing to win, and when that happens you usually lose.


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