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From Sodom to Penn State: What We Teach our Children

Parshat Vayera 5772 By Rabbi Mark Greenspan
Although I'm not a football fan, I know something about Joe Paterno. Twenty-one years ago I moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to serve as a rabbi. Shortly after arriving, I was invited to the home of a congregant. Upon entering the house, I noticed a life size cardboard facsimile of a man standing in the living room. I looked at it and asked, "Who is that?" And my congregant shook his head said, "Rabbi, you'll never make it in Harrisburg if you dont know who Joe Paterno is." That's my Joe Paterno story. Over the course of the next eleven years, I learned to grin and bear football season. I was a rabbinic football widower. Each year in the fall, members of my congregation who usually attended services would disappear on Shabbat in order to attend Penn State games. I had a congregant who insisted on walking down the aisle at his wedding to the Penn State team song. And I heard more about the games then I cared to know. Not that I have anything against football, or any other sport for that matter. I have to wonder, however, when our devotion to a team or an athlete becomes an obsession. What does it mean when we're willing to turn a blind eye to the worst kinds of abuses in the interest of winning the game? Solomon Schechter, the founding chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, said that in order to be an rabbi in America, you have to know baseball. The same can be said to be true of football, soccer, and sundry other sports. They are our national obsession and passion. They have become our true religion. We idolize athletes, devote countless hours keeping score and spend billions of dollars watching a bunch of grown men run around with a ball. The line between football and Sodom and Gomorrah was blurred this week with the shameful scandal involving the coaching staff of the Penn State Nitanny Lions. This scandal was disturbing on so many levels: that a university employee could be a pedophile; that a legendary coach would ignore such abuses; and that a school was more concerned with having a winning team than by doing right by the victims of this abuse. But most of all, I found the response of some of the students most disturbing. They were more concerned with their beloved coach than they were with the crime he helped cover up. Odd as it sounds, Penn State has become the new Sodom and Gomorrah. But the issue here is much broader than a single school. It has to do with our attitudes and our passions as Americans. Sports have not only become a new form of idolatry but also a source of abuse. This week's Torah portion contains one of the most famous arguments in the Bible. When God decides to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He comes to Abraham to report His plan. Abraham

responds by defending the cities. "Will you sweep away the innocent along with the guilty," asks our forefather. Abraham bargains with God. He asks: "How about fifty? What if there are fifty innocent people in the city?" God tells Abraham that there arent fifty. "Well how about fortyfive? Or maybe fortythirty or twenty." Finally Abraham asks, "Will you destroy the city if there are ten innocent people?" And God says, "No, I won't." But, of course, there arent even ten decent people left in Sodom and so ends the argument. This story seems so very strange to me. It just doesnt ring true. How is it possible that there werent even ten 'innocent' people left in Sodom and Gomorrah? Clearly, these were cities filled with wicked people and lawlessness but even in the most wicked of places there people who were not guilty of committing the heinous acts. They may not have been 'righteous' but certainly they werent criminals either. How is it possible, then, that God couldn't find at least ten decently average people in Sodom? I believe that the answer to this question lies in the insight that there are levels of culpability and guilt. While we may not all be guilty, no one is completely innocent. Some years back, Raul Hilberg wrote a book about the Shoah, the holocaust, entitled: "Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945." Basically Hilberg, one of the preeminent scholars of the Shoah, argued that no one in Europe or in the world was innocent either. In one way or another Europeans allowed the Shoah to happen either as its direct perpetrators or by passively allowing these crimes to happen. Even the allies were not completely innocent. While America was fighting the Nazis, some American companies continued to do business with them. And even the policies of our government had the effect of enabling the Nazis to continue their 'war against the Jews.' So were there really ten innocent people in Sodom and Gomorrah? I would argue that by standing idly by, even the average person relinquished his/her innocence. This week, many of the students at Penn State became accomplices by showing disregard for a heinous crime and coming to the defense of Mr Paterno. But the issue is much greater than that. Of course, anyone with a conscience would condemn the actions of Jerry Sandusky. But I have to wonder about a society that is so obsessed with sports that it is willing to overlook the actions of its heroes. Unfortunately, we are willing to sell our souls for another game, a chance to be on the winning team, or just to cheer on our favorite team. Winning is everything! And it begins right here in Oceanside. I've grown tired of listening to young people whose only real interest appears to be sports. Again, cheering on your team or playing soccer is not a bad thing. But surely there is more to our lives than another game or being on the winning team. Frankly, I dont blame our children for this - I blame parents - who are just as obsessed with sports as their children - and sometimes even more obsessed. Sports take priority over family, jewish living, religious education - and unfortunately sometimes over ethical behavior. The line leading from this obsession to the students rioting at Penn State this week is not as tenuous as it might seem.

It's all about winning. And if winning is everything, then you can cut corners, cheat and take advantage just to be in first place. Instead of learning sportsmanship, I see families so obsessed with winning they have forgotten the joy of playing the game or being on a team. It's tragic that Joe Paterno's career as a coach and a mentor is going to end on such a dark note. But he relinquished his position as a leader of young men when he chose to turn a blind eye to his assistant's actions. And the same is true for the university as a whole. But maybe we should see this as a teachable moment when we need to look at our priorities as a society. In the end, it's not enough to win. What is the point of being in first place if we get there by selling our soul? When education is secondary to the sports teams it promotes, then our universities are no longer serving the purpose for which they were created. Society is made up of perpetrators, bystanders and victims: your character will be measured by the party with whom you choose to identify. Shabbat Shalom