Does God Care about Jeremy Lin?

Thank you Rabbi for reminding us that we have such potential inside us!!

what an inspiring message, after a week of heartbreaking news about a wasted,talente,life .

What an inspiration he is for the youth, in a world that is ready to self destruct. He is truly blessed by G-D.

This is nice to see the word Love associated with God .I think He misses out on it .Like the bear with the heart in Rabbi's background in the video ...God is love ...

I have no doubt of G_d's love for Jeremy Lin. However, let the record show that despite New Yorkers' pride and accolades for him, he's not even in the top 15 point guards in the NBA. That he's a ray of light at "the garden," is nice, but he's many mitzvahs away from "lighting-it-up." G_d's view is different from ours. Ours is based on where we're looking at it from. And while Lin seems almost messiah-like to Knicks fans, G_d does not like turnovers and erratic play.

God cares about Jeremy Lin? Well, the guy's had incredible success, so maybe God is a basketball fan. The question about whether God cares seems harder when you ask it about (say) a dying child than a successful basketball player. Perhaps some information as to what evidence we should apply to establish how much God cares in these cases would be useful.

Millions trusted God that theit talent'd be discovered, but belief did not do it for them. B/c you need LUCK (Jerusalem Talmud). We are to serve God and not to be serrved by Him. It's too simplistic 2 say that you can do it if you only believe.

im sure god care about every body but me i could care less who is what he is so what he is a basketball player does it mean he is better than me or any body elelse i say no to me he not even be talked about

I love the sermon from this obviously wise Rabbi. Also, all the commments are so thought full and interesting. Yes, Murry, it is terrable that you lost so many dear loved one's in the Shoah. May those souls find their reward in Heaven. But that has little to do with Jeremy Lin. The Rabbis message is, "Don't give up. You have greatness." I am a little older then Jeremy. He is 23. I am 42. Also, I wear thick eyeglasses and he doesnt. Unless he has contact lenses. But thats not the good Rabbis point. The point is, I too want to play for the Knicks. I am Jewish and will not play on Shabbos. Just as the lady above, who is clearly a hero to the cashier -- who is in fact a non-Jew (!!!) -- I want to be a hero to Knick's fans. But not on Shabbos. That is the real lesson of Jeremy Lin: YOU CAN DO IT! Oh yes, and I love the rabbis pun on "Lin G-d we trust." That's very Linventive. So Linspirational. Well I won't linlinger on this message, just end by thanking you for reminding me to "never give up," which we get from Jeremy Lin and Abraham Linlincoln.

I'm thankful to be able to visit a site where intelligent people share thoughts and ideas. While it is only basketball it is indeed a fantastic opportunity for a lesson. A lesson of respect for EVERYONE and happiness that this young man displays humility and is ever so greatful for the gifts and opportunities bestowed upon him. He clearly understands who he is and WHOSE he is. One of the true beauties of sports is when all hatred, bigotry and differences can be put aside to recognize talent, effort and a goodness beyond man's descriptions. Thank you Rabbi Salomon

If there was a God, he wouldn't care either!

I think it wonderful for any young man to be almost instantly picked and destined for stardom on the basketball court. I just hope that Mr. Lin will use his notariety and his skills of putting that ball through the hoop for other reasons than just receiving ovations and not to mention a huge salary.........I hope he will be inspired to be a role model for other young people, that he will be a leader and an example to others and that he will realize that all this sudden fame will indeed bring also great responsibilities. And when he receives those million dollar salaries, it is my hope that Mr. Lin will reserve some of that money for people less fortunate that he! Only when that happens, I , who does not know a basketball from a football, will be impressed!

Today, my oldest son, my 1 year old son and I were at the supermarket. As a small act of love to my husband, I picked up a container of spicy sushi for him to eat for lunch tomorrow. It costs $12, so it was definitely a GIFT and not a regular thing. At the checkout, my older son, who is a tzaddik in the making, started putting things into bags to help the cashier. I wasn't looking, and suddenly the cashier (a non-jew) made a sound of shock, and I turned and saw he almost dropped the expensive sushi on the floor and the spicy and sushi sloshed aorund in the container and it didn;t look so pretty anymore. I was reminded of a story I had heard at that moment, of a great rabbi whose disciple wanted to do something nice for him and tried to take some expensive material the rabbi had bought and tried to make it into a talis katan. The disciple did something wrong and ruined the expensive material, and woefully told the rabbi. Tears came down the rabbi's face as the disciple apologized and the rabbi said basically 'no, this is G-d testing me to see that I won't get angry and yell." At that moment, I infused that story into my action, and caught myself right before I did a chillul Hashem plus tore into my son's soul, and I did not yell. In fact I laughed and said "it's all going to the same dark place and out of the same dark place anyway--G-d is testing me to see that I won't get angry." There was a Jewish man right next to her, and I saw in his eyes he understood what I was getting at on a deeper level, though the non-Jewish cashier just focused on the joke and laughed. Okay, it's not equivalent to a Jeremy Lin, but at that moment, I knew I was "famous" in Shamayim because I turned worlds over by overcoming my yetzer hora for anger, sparing my son's very fragile developing soul, and avoided a terrible Chillul Hashem. I don't want to be famous in the goyish world--I just want to have a beautiful portion in the world to come. Yay for passing tests!!!!

I love your beautiful story-it's a reminder to keep things in perspective. Thanks for sharing. May you have a lot of nachas from your son.

I take from it that anything is possible. We sometimes think that such and such is not possible and don't bother. However, if we trust in G-d to help us, then we can reach great heights.

I am happy that God cares about Jeffrey Lin. I wish he had cared about my great grandparents and grandparents and many more in my family tortured and murdered in the Holocaust, among millions of others. This is a foolish sermon trying to jump on the Lin bandwagon. It makes little sense.

With respect for your sentiments, I might humbly suggest that perhaps you missed the point of Rabbi Salomon's message. I don't think he was saying that G-d is on Lin's side possibly more than on the side of your dear, respected ancestors, may they rest in peace. I think he is trying to say that nobody should ever give up hope of one day becoming the great person that they have within them to become. That, incidentally, includes you. You obviously are inciteful and think carefully about events. Whereas the horrors that befell our ancestors are truly difficult for us in this modern age to comprehend, we are the ones who have been entrusted to see beyond the events that occurred and realise that G-d's plan for everyone's success goes way beyond what we might understand. Our great sages have taught us that evil people sometimes see great success in what they do so that they should be paid off for the undeniable good deeds that they accomplished in this world. The result will be that when the Final Day of Judgement arrives, which it certainly will, those evildoers will have no credit left in their "spiritual bank account" and will be excluded from the endless pleasure that is going to be granted to the good people including the holy souls of your treasured grandparents and great grandparents. Please be comforted in this knowledge and "hang on" to the true beliefs that have endured since all of our neshomos (souls) left that horror chamber of Egypt of old, whose pride and glory in civilization is totally lost and will never be rebuilt. Only the righteous will survive to the final redemption of the world. Let's stay together and not give up hope!

The Torah doesn't promise that, if you're good, everything will be worked out when you die. It promises that, if you're good, you'll be rewarded in material terms in this life (see: Devarim 11). In the case of Mr. Frymer's grandparents, I'm not sure you can fob off the question by saying that the fact that they were murdered is no big deal, because accounts get squared after you're dead. It's pretty philosophy, but not very persuasive, and you haven't supported it with any evidence.

Oy, Murry, I feel your animosity and your anger. I, too, lost cousins, aunts and uncles in the Shoah DURING MY LIFETIME! But you're looking at oranges and peanuts. I am not saying "get over it" as so many ignorant people tell us. I can even see how you would feel that the rabbi's comments made little sense; I don't feel that way. Jeremy is in my city right now, wiping up the boards with my Mavericks. There is much more to Hashem than the Shoah. We will never know why it was permitted. We have been warned several times that we would be a small nation among nations and certainly murdering 11 million people pared down not just our people but many others. But we as a people need to take the lessons we learned from the horrors of Hitler and move on, taking the lessons with us. Rabbi, I loved your blog.

I am sorry for what happened to your relatives in the holocaust. May G-d bless you and may nothing like the holocaust ever happen to us again.

God was on their side. God is on all our sides. To think othewise is to not understand god.

Just to clarify, G-d cared very much for your ancestors and the millions upon millions of others who have been tortured and murdered throughout history only because they were Jewish. We cannot understand G-d's plans. Only a few times in history were individuals, or the Jewish nation as a whole, entitled to witness and appreciate how all the events of this world - past present and future - are weaved together by G-d Himself. There may be moments in our lives that we can point to and say "wow! look how it all worked out!" If you have merited such a moment you know it's a good feeling. But don't expect to have those epiphanies on a daily basis! You might appreciate a symphony with scores of instruments joined together in a beautiful, harmonious song. Of course, if you could only hear the violins, you would not appreciate the beauty at all!. You may even think it sounds bad! To judge G-d's level of care and involvement in this world, based on the outcome of an individual event - good or bad - would be like throwing away tix to the symphony because you once heard one of the 25 violinists play solo and you didn't particularly like it. Our feeble minds cannot possibly understand the grandeur and majesty of the Creator of the Universe. He created this world and continues to be involved on a daily basis in every minute detail of our lives.

Murry, I am deeply tortured in my soul that seems to bear witness to the Holocaust from a generation away. A baby-boomer born post-Holocaust I remember my first encounter with the suffering of your grandparents and others father, sister, brothers from the pages of a book. I was small when I stumbled upon the book of the camp liberation and seemed to hear the cries right off the pages. How can this be? It was to be several years before I knew what the Holocaust was and no one in my family was a victim but I carry the memory of your grandparents and six-million others in my heart. It is true, the greatness of a basketball star pales in comparison to what your grandparents suffered. In this story we don't draw a connection because to compare the success of an athlete to the suffering of Holocaust victims is to diminish the enormity of the horrors of the Holocaust. This story is to encourage us, not meant to diminish the memory of your family.

I don't really follow sports very much, except for some football. While it's great that Lin found his spark, doesn't G-d usually expect us not only to be successful with ourselves, but to help others find their success in order to get themselves on their feet? I think the idolatry here is both idolizing or envying someone else's success and thinking one can't do it him/herself in life, thereby having a defeatist attitude. However, it's all a matter of finding that inner spark within one's self in order to be successful as well as help others be successful. But, I've learned on Aish.com in another video that saying one can't is idolatry. So, we must find faith in Hashem in order to find the successful person within ourselves, as well as help others be successful after us.