OP-ED: The trade

By RABBI ETHAN LINDEN

It seems to be biggest story of the year so far, if I only judge by the letter height on the front page story above the fold in yesterday’s newspaper.  It seems to be biggest story of the year, if I judge by the sheer number of people in the JCC, at Shir Chadash and in line at CVS who are talking about it.  It’s the biggest story of the year, if I judge by the vitriol of the local radio call-in shows.

The Saints traded Jimmy Graham.

Now, as many you know, I gave up watching and following the NFL over two years ago, but a local news story this momentous cannot simply be ignored.  I mean, I would seem hopelessly out of touch if I did not seek to address the spiritual crisis which has engulfed Who Dat Nation.

The Saints traded Jimmy Graham.  How could this have happened?

I do not pretend to be expert on professional football and still less on the complexities of building a winning football team in the salary cap era.

But allow me one observation as a football naïf: the Saints went 7-9 last season, broke even at 3-3 in their division and failed to take the top spot in an historically bad NFC South. They lost twice to the Atlanta Falcons.  This was not a successful football team by almost any measure, not in absolute terms and surely not given the high expectations with which the Saints began the 2014 campaign.  Given the lack of success, does it not stand to reason that major changes should be made?  If the team could not compete at a high level in 2014, should not those responsible for putting a winning roster together be willing to think radically about how to change the team for the better? I wonder if the sadness and befuddlement people seem to feel about Jimmy Graham going to Seattle is less about Graham per se than it is about the prospect of change in the football team they love.  Change, after all, is hard, just ask this now famous kid, who mourns the departure of her favorite baseball player in a trade.  Although most of us would not react quite so strongly to a favorite player leaving our favorite team, those of us who follow sports can identify with the feeling of loss.

And in the end, change is accompanied, by necessity, by a sense of loss.  That is, after all, what change means: something is lost, and hopefully something is gained.  But even if we can see the gain, we are always acutely aware of what has been lost.  And in any change the losses tend to be unequally distributed throughout the system.  (So, for example, Drew Brees’ very public negative reaction to the Jimmy Graham trade, is totally understandable, since in his role as quarterback losing a top receiving target is far worse from his perspective than whatever gain the Saints will realize in the long term.)

What makes this difficult is that change is also a necessary part of any system and institution. To keep the football example going for one more (rather risky) step: one of the most successful football teams of the last decade, the New England Patriots, have managed to remain excellent partly by virtue of the fact that head coach Bill Belichick is absolutely unsentimental (perhaps even ruthless) when it comes to letting players go when they no longer fit his scheme.  He rarely holds on to veterans for too long, a problem that plagues other teams and inhibits their ability to win by impeding the progression of younger players and clogging up the roster with ill-used salaries.

Synagogue are not football teams, but the challenge to change and adapt that we face is just as real as that facing any institution attempting to stay relevant or team hoping to stay competitive as time passes.  And just as professional sports is littered with franchises that were great and then refused to change for too long and thus lost their momentum (the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA are two great examples this year) so too there are many synagogues around the country that remained complacent for too many years in the face of too many shifting trends.  Change is hard, and it is always accompanied by loss, but the consequences of refusing to change can be devastating.

The hardest part in all this is to maintain the essential core of the system, institution or team as the change is happening.   If the delicate balance between meaningful change and maintenance of the core identity can be achieved then the losses experienced within the system can be absorbed.  If the trade of Jimmy Graham is just some random step in an unfocused plan then fans have a right to complain.

But if the loss of Graham is a considered change towards the larger goal of a successful team then the loss-while still painful for some-will be justified.  So, too,  with change in a synagogue: change for the sake of change will hurt and it will fail.  But change for the sake of preserving the core values of the place is worth the loss and the risk.  The trick, of course, is knowing the difference between change because change sounds good and change that is the result of careful and thoughtful planning and analysis.  We hope the Saints’ front office knows the difference when it comes to the Saints, and we hope we know the difference when it comes to our institutions and communities.  We will not always get it right, but if we’re careful, we will succeed more often then we fail.

(Rabbi Ethan Linden is the spiritual leader of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in Metairie, the only Conservative congregation in Louisiana.)