There is a basketball player who’s Jewish. A couple of years ago, I heard about him. You know, we know a lot of young boys in the community, and they keep telling me about this boy. His name is Zevi Samet. Zevi Samet plays basketball for YU. Is he a member of YU? I’m like, okay, I don’t know. I never really went to YU. I’m a Lakewood person. I learned in Lakewood. That’s really my background. I don’t know who’s on the basketball team. Zevi Samet. Anyhow, I keep hearing about him. He’s really good. He’s really good. Until also on one day, I get a text message from Zevi Samet. I said, “Hi, Zevi.” He says, “Rabbi, I just want you to know I listen to your classes all the time. I want to meet you.” So, one day, I was in Muncie. He says, “Rabbi, I’m going to come to Muncie to meet you.” We met each other outside of this speaking place in Muncie, and we’ve become, since then, very, very close. Very, very close. He’s even in my house. He knows my kids. Very, very close. I know his parents. I know his father, his grandfather, his mother, his siblings, his cousins. Every time a cousin bumps into me, he says, “By the way, I’m Zevi Samet’s cousin.” Okay. Very nice.
It turns out he’s an incredible ball player. He is an incredible ball player. He himself has scored the most points in the history of this university, and is among the top seven, maybe six, in points scored in the history of Division III basketball among all colleges across the country. Division III, which is a lower division. But he’s an unbelievable ball player. So I’m like, wow, okay, everyone’s excited about this kid because he can play ball. His team has won the championship two years in a row: this year, a few weeks ago, and then last year, a few weeks ago. And he, of course, scored the most points on the team by far and great. But here’s what I find incredible about this kid: his demeanor is unbelievable. His style, his way, is complete. Every single shot he ever hit on the court, he never played. He never pumps his fists or jumps up and down. Never points at somebody else for making a mistake. Never. Everything is with humility. He is a fully frum (religious) boy. Wherever he goes, he’s wearing a hat, jacket, white shirts; he’d see it out. The night that he won the championship last year, the team was down by like 15 points, and he had a crazy second half and hit a crazy three-pointer that was in videos all over the place. Every Jewish kid who has access to these things was watching his video. Two hours a day. Two hours after the shot, he was in the beit midrash (study hall), and he was learning. That’s what he does. He learns, and whenever you see him or talk to him, he knows how to say the right thing. See, here’s a kid who’s in his low 20s, who’s become suddenly very famous in the Jewish world, and he knows how to talk. He speaks all over the place incredibly well, but with a ton of humility.
Last week, he calls me up. He says, “Rabbi, our team won the championship, and now they’re in a higher-level tournament. We won the first two games of the tournament. We’re going to Atlanta before the tournament. We want to come to your house.” I said, “Why are you coming to my house? I can’t teach you a jump shot. Why are you coming to my house?” He says, “No, I want the boys to get chizuk.” This is what he’s done with his platform. A lot of boys on the team, some are religious, some are not at all. Some have earrings and tattoos. You know what he did? Practice used to be during shacharit (morning prayer) in the yeshiva. He asked the coach, “Could we now have our own minyan (prayer quorum) for shacharit, so that everyone on the team has to pray first? I’m going to raise money to give them breakfast, and then they practice.” Every single halftime of every single game, he takes the whole team around. He’s the captain of the team. He’s the best player on the team. He takes the whole team around, and he gives them a dvar Torah (Torah thought) at halftime. He raises money to take them on a Shabbaton (Shabbat retreat). He took them to Lakewood a few months ago, just to be inspired. There are players on the team that were not religious before, and today, I’m going to show you a Shabbat. He brought the team to my house to get chizuk, to get inspiration and strength. As he’s walking out, he says, “Rabbi, do you think we should practice at all?” I said, “Maybe you have a tournament game coming up tomorrow. So maybe when you land in Atlanta, enough with the rabbis, and practice a pass, a shot, a rebound.”
But his mindset is, “I was given a platform. I am going to use it as a Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of God’s name). I’m going to use it for the right words.” Now think of the celebrities across the world. How many of them use their platform to knock their country, to knock different people, to say ridiculous things, to say embarrassing things, to say disparaging things, to say inappropriate things? And here you have a Jewish boy who is a ben Torah (Torah scholar). Again, literally a frum kid. He goes to the school to play ball, but really he wants to be a ben Torah. And he’s using his words. He’s using his platform to use his words to lift up people. That’s the mindset of a Jew.