Regular readers of this column will know that over the past few weeks I have been writing from a slightly unusual vantage point – the stands of Australian cricket grounds. Together with my wife and three other middle-aged couples (middle-aged if I’m being generous), I traveled halfway around the world to watch the England cricket team lose, often badly, to the Australian cricket team in the most recent Ashes series.
Now it’s over. The bags are unpacked, the jet lag is biting, and the postmortems have begun.
What is striking is how quickly a consensus has emerged among fans, pundits, and especially former players. England, we are told, were not beaten because they lacked talent.
On paper, they had skill to spare. Rather, they were ill-prepared, at times arrogant, frequently ill-disciplined, and – most damningly – short on grit and resilience when things started to go wrong. Australia were not flawless, but they were tougher, more streetwise, and far better prepared for the specific conditions and pressures of an Ashes series on home soil.
Sport, of course, is never just sport. It is one of the most powerful metaphors we have for life itself.
Cricket has an honesty that is sometimes brutal. You cannot bluff your way through five long Test matches. You cannot hide a lack of preparation behind good intentions or clever slogans. Over time, the basics assert themselves: technique, temperament, teamwork, humility, and the ability to listen to those who have been there before.
When those are missing, even the most gifted individuals are eventually found out. That lesson extends far beyond the sporting arena.
In Israel, the clamor is growing for a full national investigation into the catastrophic failures that preceded the Hamas massacre of October 7. The questions being asked are not fundamentally different from those asked after a sporting collapse, though the stakes could not be more different.
How prepared were we? Did overconfidence dull our sense of danger? Were warnings ignored because they did not fit prevailing assumptions?
Did we confuse technological brilliance with strategic wisdom? Did experience and institutional memory give way to arrogance and complacency?
Just as England’s cricketers did not lack talent, Israel does not lack courage, ingenuity, or sacrifice. October 7 was not the result of laziness or cowardice on the part of ordinary citizens or soldiers.
But many of the hard questions now emerging revolve around leadership – its preparation, humility, discipline, and willingness to listen: to uncomfortable intelligence assessments, to dissenting voices, and to the lessons of past failures.
These are uncomfortable conversations, but they are necessary ones.
'Who is wise?'
Jewish tradition has long understood that success is not built on brilliance alone. In Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) – that slim but endlessly profound tractate of ethical teachings – we are warned repeatedly against arrogance and intellectual self-satisfaction. “Who is wise?” asks Ben Zoma. “One who learns from every person.” Not from those who flatter us. Not only from those who agree with us. From every person.
Another of the mishna's teaching tells us, “Do not rely on yourself until the day of your death.” Confidence is vital, but complacency is lethal. The very moment we believe we have nothing more to learn is the moment we begin to lose. There is a deep irony here.
England arrived in Australia talking endlessly about “Bazball” – a philosophy of fearless cricket, of backing instinct over caution, of playing without fear. At its best, that approach produced thrilling victories. But philosophy without preparation quickly becomes hubris.
Playing without fear is not the same as playing without discipline. Trusting intuition is not the same as ignoring experience.
Jewish wisdom would recognize this instantly. Our tradition values bitachon – trust and confidence – but it never divorces that trust from effort, planning, and humility.
We pray for success, but we are commanded to prepare and then to fight, despite some haredi (ultra-Orthodox) opinions to the contrary.
We speak of faith, but we insist on responsibility and action. As the Talmud puts it with characteristic bluntness: one should not rely on miracles. Nations, like sports teams, pay a heavy price when they forget this.
The calls for a serious, independent investigation into October 7 are not about apportioning blame for its own sake. They are about learning. About rebuilding trust. About ensuring that experience is heard, preparation is prioritized, and humility is restored to decision-making processes at every level.
Without that, declarations of strength ring hollow.
The same applies in our personal and communal lives. Careers falter not because people lack intelligence, but because they stop learning. Marriages struggle not because of a lack of love, but because listening gives way to certainty. Communities fracture when leaders become convinced of their own infallibility and dismiss dissent as disloyalty.
Painful but instructive
Watching England's collapse unfold over five long matches was painful, but it was also instructive.
Talent dazzles, but it does not sustain. Slogans inspire, but they do not substitute for hard work.Confidence motivates, but only humility keeps it grounded.
In a world that prizes speed, certainty, and bold declarations, these are unfashionable virtues.
Preparation is slow. Listening is uncomfortable. Humility feels like weakness. Yet again and again – on the sports field, in national security, and in everyday life – they prove to be the difference between resilience and disaster.
As we left Australia, one local fan offered a remark that stayed with me. “You’ve got great players,” he said kindly. “But you were not ready for us.”
That sentence could apply far beyond cricket.
If there is a single takeaway from a summer of sporting disappointment and two years of national trauma, it is this: Preparation, humility, discipline, and respect for experience are not optional extras. They are the prerequisites for success in every arena that matters – personal, sporting, communal, and national.
Ignoring them does not just risk losing a series. Sometimes, tragically, it risks losing far more.
The writer is a rabbi and physician. He writes and teaches on Jewish ethics, leadership, and resilience. His work appears on rabbidrjonathanlieberman.substack.com and youtube.com/@rabbidrjonathanlieberman.