Beyond Nationalism

I'm recalling how absolutely capitvated my mom was at the 1976 Olympics, amongst a sea of waving blue and white Israeli flags, when the Israel soccer team was playing. The Israeli flag is a tallis, the cheering, an outright show of nationalism.
I was curious this week, as 7000 young athletes began marching in at the opening of the Maccabiah games (and we have the parents and grandparents of an American swimmer staying with us right now, and last week a basketball player and his family stayed with us for a special pre-Maccabiah vacation, and the Bat Mitzvah of their daughter), yes, I was curious how I would feel as the Canadian team marched in. Would I feel Canadian? Israeli? Turned out that the 700 young Canadians in white Stampede cowboy hats and red shirts were all kids I'd recognize from Jewish summer camp, and that these Canadians danced a spirited hora to the music that accompanied them in, all of them excited and inspired with their trip to Israel. All of the athletes in the Maccabiah are Jewish. The games were initiated in the 30's to create a new Jewish self-image. The people of the basketball, the people of the swimming pool. The people of the strong, sturdy body. The physical people, not a brain with a transportation system, but a vital physical presence. We have a model for this in our heritage: the Maccabi's.
What is nationalism? Is it good? Is it bad? I'm beginning to think that asking this is like asking whether water is good or water is bad. If someone brings you a glass of water, water is good. (and believe me, I got totally dehydrated during the half-marathon yesterday. I entered as a public noncompetitor, and it was too much in the heat for me. I'm fine now, and smarter.) If someone brings you water, water is good. If someone drowns you, God forbid, water is bad. Water is bad? Water is good? Nah. It's what we do with the water. I was thinking about all this, when today's A Word A Day brought me this thought:
I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us. -Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)
We, the missing link, have some noble and beautiful ideas. In our brokenness, our half-doneness, our gawky transitional adolescent lanky missing-linkiness, we try to pour wondrous fare into halfbaked vessels. And the vessels break.
And we will grow. I know this. We will grow.