sport. Usain Bolt holds the world record in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, and the 400-meter relay. For this achievement, Bolt has earned honors few have, great fortune, and worldwide fame.
What exactly did the young Jamaican win dozens of gold medals and Olympic prizes for? Bolt is the fastest human being of his species. He is able to use his long legs to get from one point to another at speeds tens of seconds faster than the average person.
A certain person from the city of Modi'in Illit crosses the 100-meter mark in 50 seconds, Bolt does it in only 9.69. This amazing ability is worth, it turns out, millions of dollars.
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Sounds crazy?
Wait until you hear the plans of the human cheetah. Sports websites reported that Bolt plans to retire in 2016, when he will be 27 years old. "I want to retire at my peak and leave room for the young," the man said.
In other words, Bolt explains, he will reach his peak at 27, and then other young men (perhaps 14) will come along to take his place. For the rest of his life, Bolt will never do anything of value that will compare to what he achieved in his 27 years. No one will be there to record it, anyway. From then on, he is doomed to oblivion, certainly on the day when a young man with longer legs breaks the 9.69-second barrier.
An equally 'great' athlete is a 27-year-old young man of Argentine descent named Lionel Messi.
What is the secret of the man worth hundreds of millions of dollars and considered the object of admiration of tens of millions of children and teenagers around the world? Again, the man's strength is in his legs. Messi has an amazing ability to roll a ball into the net, despite the attempts of an opponent placed in front of him to thwart him.
However, Messi is described by a sports journalist as a 'spoiled baby', unsympathetic, who sometimes likes to 'do exactly what' when he is aware of his great importance to the team.
He almost abandoned the club that raised him for the sake of money, and recently it was revealed that he was nothing less than a criminal who took money from the people who paid quite a bit to see him play. All these facts did not prevent countless Orthodox fans from seeing him as their god, paying huge sums of money for the privilege of wearing a shirt he wore, and even buying the best-selling hagiographic children's book written about him.
A 'biography' type book for children? Yes, and it has even been translated into dozens of languages. The book belongs to the 'Stories of the Righteous' genre that we are so familiar with. Large, dotted letters are accompanied by pictures describing the life of 'the flea', starting from his childhood or in other words, from 1987 when the light shone in Rosario - a remote city in Argentina, to these days when he crosses the age of 27.
The book includes additional elements familiar from the stories of the righteous: the talent that shone through at the age of 5, the grandmother's faith in the short boy who would grow up to be one of the greatest of his generation, the difficulties he faced, and the flashes of genius he displayed to the surprise of those present who did not believe in the unfortunate boy.
But unlike the tzadiks we know, the spoiled tzadik achieved respect and money at the age of 12, when he was signed to the big yeshiva, to the leading university, and to the Barcelona youth soccer team.
disbelieve.
Uncle Topaz is dead.. A more important book that came out this year is called 'Brothers - A True Story,' by author Mickey Goldenberg.
Who is this little-known author? Mickey Goldenberg is the younger brother of his uncle Topaz, and one of the people closest to him. In the book, Goldenberg describes the life of the man whose name was synonymous with the terms 'ratings king' and 'number one in entertainment', until their tragic end.
At the end of the book appears Topaz's last letter, which he wrote to his brother just minutes before his first suicide attempt. Here are a few quotes that may teach us about the heavy price of empty fame, of hollow brilliance:
""Don't cry - it's the only option left for me, it's better for me, and for you too.".
Don't cry - I'll see you from above. Try to be together a lot. I want to smell, hug and kiss you one last time...
This is not how I can live. I can't! With the shame. With the regret, with the feelings of guilt, with the lack of any logic in the actions I have done. As a criminal. A prisoner. A released prisoner.
"Uncle Topaz is dead. There is no more. I killed him. On the tombstone they wrote: David Goldenberg: 'A man who received everything and lost everything at once.'".
