October 5th: Forgiving Abraham

The following is a transcript of the Sermon given on Rosh Hashanah morning by Austin Zoot at his student pulpit in Kokomo, Indiana.

We just read olne of the most intriguing passages of the Hebrew Bible, the Akedah, or the Binding of Isaac. In this episode, Abraham is told to take Isaac, his son, and sacrifice him before God. So the next day, Abraham gets to work. They journey to Mount Moriah, where Abraham binds Isaac and begins to ritual of sacrifice, only to be stopped by an angel of God, telling him that he has demonstrated his faith and that Isaac is not actually to be sacrificed.

When I was in Sunday school as a child, we discussed this narrative as the ultimate test of faith. Abraham believed so completely in the notion that God would look out for him and for his family that he was willing to do whatever he was asked, regardless of the gravity of the situation. Imagine that for a moment: a man who was willing to sacrifice his only son to a God who had promised him offspring as numerous as the stars.

This level of faith, unyielding and blind faith, seems foreign to many of us. And that’s because it should. A willingness to throw away even one’s own family for a belief in God is something that, today, would seem outrageous, too dramatic to be stomached comfortably. And there is evidence that while God was pleased with Abraham’s faith, God was also disturbed by it. According to the text, this was the last time that Abraham and God conversed, and the divine relationship passed to Isaac from that moment on. God asked Abraham to do something as a test, and seems almost disturbed by Abraham’s willingness to follow through with it.

What are we supposed to do with this? Abraham is our very first patriarch, a figure of honor and respect from which all of Jewish tradition derives. What do we do with a flawed patriarch? How do we come to terms with an individual who we know has flaws, who we know has tendencies of extremism, and yet is supposed to be a role model for us?

First, we are asked to look at what it means to be asked for actions based on faith. During the High Holidays, a time when we talk about who shall live, who shall die, who will be inscribed in the Book of Life, it is easy to say that blind faith is the way to go. Let go of the wheel and let God take over, so to speak. And yet, this story tells us to stop, to reconsider. We are told that, in this instance, Abraham’s willingness to do what is asked of him is acknowledged with a promise for a rich and blessed future, but it also comes with it the departure of God’s connection, a loss of direct communication with the almighty. The Torah is, in essence, warning us about the potential ramifications of what a total and blind commitment to divine decree can lead to if it goes unchecked by reason and understanding of context.

This is especially complicated when we take a look at an earlier story in the Bible. When God tells Abraham that he is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham argues with God, negotiating exactly how many good people need to be present in the cities in order for God to spare them from destruction. In this case, Abraham isn’t blindly trusting in God’s decree; he is demanding that God do what is right, even if that means being willing to put his own standing as God’s chosen emissary at stake. Why is it that Abraham was so willing to compromise in one narrative, while so singularly focused in another?

We read this text on Rosh Hashanah for a number of reasons. One is to show us what it means to have faith in God’s plan, to know that, as we are about to be inscribed in the book of Life, that there is some notion of faith in what God has assigned to us. Another is the notion of coming to terms with a flawed character in our lives. During the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we set out to ask forgiveness from those in our lives against whom we have sinned, those who we have hurt and those who we have not fully appreciated. At the same time, we are asked to forgive others, allowing them the full repentance that we ourselves seek in our own work to be better than we were a year ago.

In that regard, Abraham continues to be a role model for us, although in a decidedly different way. Abraham as a flawed character allows us to see what it means to both be the best we can be, as well as to struggle in certain areas. We are able to see Abraham in a moment of faith, doing what God has asked him to do without question and without compromise. That is a huge act of commitment, and a worthy virtue for us to embody. And yet, his unyielding determination, and his refusal in that moment to look thoughtfully at the consequences of the matter show to us the humanity of our ancestors, of our leaders, and to remind us that if Abraham was able to make this kind of mistake, then certainly we, too, may err and make a full return to goodness.

As we begin the ten days of awe, we first are asked to forgive Abraham for his blind faith. We see what it means to believe in God, what it means to be willing to go to great lengths to do what is asked of us, and yet we are forced to come to terms with what happens when we get carried away, when we go too far in our pursuit of our own selfish desires. Once we have started the process with Abraham, we turn our attention to those in our own lives, those far more complicated situations of virtue and sin.

It can be difficult to forgive those in our lives who have made mistakes. We are hurt, we are angry, we are struggling to figure out how to find those values of forgiveness and understanding in ourselves. Sometimes it is loved ones who hurt us. Sometimes, we struggle to forgive ourselves, to let ourselves off the hook for the mistakes we have made. The Torah gives us Abraham as a guide, a model by which we are to understand our own inclination to extreme behavior. If we have it within ourselves to forgive our patriarch for his actions, and still see the virtue in him, then so too must we be able to find within ourselves the values and good intentions that sometimes lead us to misdeeds and mistakes.

Over the next ten days, it is our responsibility to go through our lives and take stock of the moments where we missed the mark. We are meant to improve ourselves as people, to ensure that we learn something from where we messed up, and to find the places where we can improve ourselves the next time around. But I am not a believer in the wrath of God, the notion that humans are inherently sinners. I’m not a believer in T’shuvah as a forced admission of guilt. It is, rather, an opportunity, a chance to look back and discover parts of ourselves that we like, and that we cherish, and to ensure that our misdeeds do not overshadow the good things that we do for ourselves and for the world.

The Torah portion gives us the chance to see this in action. We are able to see what happens when our virtues go to extremes, to see when we go beyond what is healthy in terms of devotion. It helps us to establish the line, to learn where goodness begins and ends. And, as a result, it also teaches us a valuable lesson about what it means to forgive, to overcome character flaws and continue to serve as a role model, as a leader. If we can learn this morning from Abraham, learn to forgive him and to understand him, we have already begun the process of forgiving one another and ourselves.

Shana Tova.

October 4th: Fresh Commitment to Justice

The following is a transcript of the sermon given by Austin Zoot at Temple B'nai Israel in Kokomo, Indiana on Erev Rosh Hashanah.

When I look at the news, I often find myself checking the date. I want to make sure that I’m reading the news for today, not from months ago, and it is getting harder to tell. I feel as though every day I’m finding similar stories, repeated over and over again. Race rioting in Charlotte. A shooting at the University of Illinois. An ISIS motivated attack at a mall in Minnesota. The details change each time, the locations, and, of course, the lives affected. But the ills that plague our country persist, over and over again, a seemingly endless stream of terror and fear, fighting and strife.

I find myself growing frustrated, growing tired of feeling hurt, confused, and sad. Worse, I find myself growing disengaged. I find myself feeling less, resigned to the fact that we continue on, doing exactly what we’ve always done, knowing better than to expect any different results until we are willing to change something.

And the problems in America don’t stop with rioting and murder. We, as a nation, are struggling with anger and resentment that has found a home in the hearts of nearly all Americans. During this, an election year, we are finding more and more hostility about the very basic elements of what it means to be Americans. When, since Abraham Lincoln, have we ever disagreed so profoundly on the direction of our nation? When have we ever struggled so mightily to know who we are and, more importantly, who we want to be? It used to be that it was impolite to talk about politics. Now, it seems we can’t possibly talk about anything else. And we can’t help but be angry, be upset. Last month, when I was in town for Shabbat, we had a text study, during which we discussed the notions of justice, and our role in pursuing it. Within 15 minutes of the discussion, we were discussing politics. You want to know something: I bet it didn’t matter what the Torah portion was that week, what we were using to frame our conversation. We are constantly and profoundly disturbed by what we see going on around us.

And that is because America is at a formative point in our existence as a nation. Racial tensions are, arguably, as bad as they have been since the 1960s, with riots in Charlotte, Baltimore, St. Louis, and many more in just the last two years. Gun violence has turned into a daily occurrence. According to the Religious Action Center in Washington, DC, an average of 30,000 Americans are killed each year killed by gunfire. CNN released a report stating that for every 100 citizens in America, there are 88 guns, and the number of background checks requested per month is on the rise dramatically since 2012. In other words, guns are a major problem in our country, but they are getting more popular, rather than less. And the threat of terror is becoming very real, with many incidences of growing concern, including the New York City bombing earlier this month.

This is, I will admit, not the happiest of starts to a sermon. Luckily for us, a Jewish lens affords us the ability to find some hope.

We, as Jews, are given an opportunity, once a year, to start over, to wipe the slate clean and start again. Rosh Hashanah is the time on our calendar that we are absolved of everything that happened in the past year, and allows us the chance to start again. Our New Year is not like the January 1st secular version, in which we often get two days off to party, then return to the mundane normalcy of daily life. In our version, there is a built-in notion of introspection. In the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we are expected to take stock of our lives, to make amends for the mistakes we’ve made, and to lay out a plan for how we are to be better people in the world. In that regard, Jews have perfected the notion of a New Year’s resolution.

Our task is to apply that to the world around us. In the book of Isaiah, we read that we are meant to be a “light unto the nations,” serving to guide the world toward a better future. It is our job to use our new beginning to look at our world with fresh eyes, to guide our discussion as a nation and to remind others why these issues are important. We don’t talk about gun violence prevention in terms of statistics, we talk about it in terms of lives we are able to save. We don’t talk about racial tensions in our hopes of returning to a status quo, we do it to ensure that every American, every PERSON has the right to live with respect and integrity. We don’t work to banish terrorism and hate because of fear, but rather in spite of that fear, working to ensure that the values of America are maintained in every corner of our country.

I have been accused of being an idealist when it comes to an individual’s role in making the world a better place. I didn’t come up with that on my own, though. Our tradition teaches us that to save a single life is as if you have saved an entire world, and to destroy a life is to destroy the entire world. We, as Jews, have the opportunity to use Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of our Jewish year, as a launching point, recharging our desire to make the world a better place, and to do so even on the most micro level.

In 37 days, we will be voting for the new leadership of our country. But decisions are made by those who show up. We have the right and the obligation to vote, to have our voices heard in terms of who we wish to represent our best interests. Not only do we get to vote, but we also have the chance, in the next 37 days and well beyond them, to use our voices to make a difference. It can be in a post on social media. It can be through donations of time, money, and attention to political and social activities we find meaningful. It can be through engaging in meaningful dialogue with our friends, family, and coworkers, to ensure that we do not sit idly by and continue to let the challenges that face our nation plague us.

Not all action needs to be political in nature either. Much of our challenge is that we are surrounded by sadness, surrounded by conflict and strife. The simple act of bringing a little joy into the world can go a long way toward making a difference on a communal level. A smile here, a pleasant conversation there. We often forget how profound a difference we can make on others by remembering the humanity in one another, even when we may be going through our own challenges. It costs nothing of us to take a moment to wish someone well, to pause and offer someone some care, and yet it has the power to significantly impact another person’s life.

It is easy to get discouraged by all that is wrong with our world. It is easy to forget what hope feels like. Which is why we take the time to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, to start anew. One of my favorite readings from Mishkan T’filah, our Reform Jewish prayer book, says “Disturb us, O God, and vex us; let not your Shabbat be a day of torpor and slumber; let it be a time to be stirred and spurred to action.”

When we come to Yom Kippur, known as the Great Shabbat, may we also be called once again to action. May we be propelled to make the world a better place. And may we be inspired, rejuvenated to ensure that we may bring fresh eyes and fresh passion to the work that needs to be done for the world.

Shana Tova.

September 28th: That's Debatable

If you had not watched the debate and exclusively looked at my Twitter feed, you would have thought that Hillary Clinton delivered the knockout punch to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Depending on what news source you choose to follow, you might find something very different.

In all reality, an objective viewer is likely to say very little changed from Monday to Tuesday. Clinton was exactly as prepared and calculated (perhaps overly so), and willing to expose Trump’s character flaws as we would have expected. Trump continued to be as brash and braggadocious (yes, it is, in fact, a word) as he has always been, marginalizing some and endearing to others. On the whole, voters got to see very little that they had not known hours before.

Perhaps a few Clinton supporters feel more confident in their candidate. Perhaps the political ideologues feel a little better knowing that their candidate will stick to certain statements and adhere to party lines. Perhaps even a few undecideds were able to come to terms with their voting reality. But, on the whole, it would be hard to say that Monday night moved the needle much at all in one direction or another.

The sad reality we face was displayed in the split-screen image that filled our TVs. We were able to see these two individuals next to one another, to compare their speech and their reactions. In this way, it was abundantly clear that we are comparing two dramatically different characters. One a career politician, taking up a role she has spent years training for, and another who continually proves himself to be impulsive and volatile. It is an embarrassment to our political system and a mockery to the ideologies that divide our nation.

Our country is deeply and troublingly divided on big conceptual issues and how to solve them. In an election year, we have the chance to discuss and debate, to hear from potential leaders and choose a future we can believe in. Unfortunately, we do not have two options of legitimate governmental direction. We created a situation in which a man with nothing but money and hot air has been selected as the leader of a party once known for its traditional adherence to values and history, now known as a circus. In a year where we so desperately need to discuss the political reality of our country, we find ourselves incapable of having a legitimate conversation.

A debate is only valid when two legitimate parties agree to discuss particular issues. While Clinton showed up to play ball, she opposed a man with no legitimacy to back himself up. What resulted was a sad version of two people engaging in very different discussions from one another. What should have served as a moment of high-level discussion and policy argumentation devolved into a mockery of a country in desperate need for change.

This election will show far too many people who are voting far more because they hate the other person, rather than that they feel strongly in support of their candidate. That is a sad reality, but one we have to come to terms with. As a result, Americans will have to continually fight for their voices to be heard. It won’t be enough to wait another 4 years until we can take another crack at this elections craziness. We must be willing to work hard to work with whichever of these two individuals find themselves in the oval office. Monday night made it abundantly clear that we have an awful lot of work to do.

September 26th: Gone Too Soon

The number “1992” bothered me profoundly. Learning of the death of a baseball star was incredibly sad. But the fact that this young man was born during the same year as I was terribly disturbing.

We went to bed on Saturday night at a time when baseball was exciting, full of promise and fun. Sunday morning muted that happiness, snuffing out the chase for the playoffs with the death of a beloved player, a cherished human being.

24-year-olds are not supposed to die. He was supposed to pitch today. He was supposed to be a perennial all-star, maybe even a Hall of Famer. He was supposed to share his talent with fans of the game for years to come. Instead, we are left with shock, with the devastating reality that his life has run it’s course.

I have never met Jose Fernandez. To me, he was a baseball player, a statistic, an asset to his ballclub. He was, in many ways a character in baseball’s drama. With the way we critique and judge our sports stars, it would be so easy to forget that he was a real person, a friend, a husband. Bringing his humanity to life only after his death feels somehow perverse, a failure to fully appreciate him enough while he provided us with entertainment and excitement.

As the baseball world begins to memorialize their fraternity brother, the joy he brought to the game was impossible to ignore. He had just enthusiasm for life, a way of bringing a smile to everything he did. He made it fun to watch him play baseball, and made it so abundantly clear that he loved to play the game.

To memorialize him yesterday, many clubs made Fernandez jerseys with his name and number 16 in their own colors. The Cubs were one of those teams, hanging a 16 Cubs Fernandez jersey. There had been discussions about Chicago looking into trading for him during the coming offseason, an idea that I, as a fan, had gotten excited about. I would have loved to have seen Fernandez’s name written in Cubby blue. I certainly didn’t want to see it like that.

May his memory be forever a blessing to all who knew him, all who loved him, and all who shared a love for his game.

September 6th: Don't Be Afraid of Pokemon

Adults are terrified of Pokemon. Well, to be more specific, educators of young people are intimidated by Pokemon. As children begin their return to the classroom, teachers are forced to compete with telephones in a way that they can identify more clearly than ever: an augmented reality game that has captured the attention of youth better than most educators can.

Earlier this month, I spent time with two different communities of youth educators and advisors, and both times, Pokemon Go was a source of anxiety and intimidation. What chance does education have when the competition is a cell phone scavenger hunt with digital characters hidden all over the neighborhood? Even worse, what do you do when those Pokemon actually invade the walls of the classroom?

What became clear to me is that all too many teachers and educators are viewing these distractions and outside influences of children as competition, as some kind of external source that must be vanquished with even more engaging activities and educational models. If that is the case, I have a sad reality to share: school, most especially religious school, will never be able to compete with Pokemon Go.

You see, Religious School has a longstanding battle waging against the fun of the outside world. Whether it’s leaving Sunday school early to get to a soccer game or skipping Wednesday night Hebrew school in favor of marching band practice, the abundance of outside influences have been forcing young Jews to make a choice about their time. As of yet, almost no religious school model has been able to engage on a level that can compete with sports or other extracurricular activities. It requires a deep commitment and desire for learning to remain engaged in a religious school system, and, while many teens have that willingness to engage, many do not.

That is, of course, not to say that there aren’t excellent programs going on in religious institutions. Every year, Sunday schools get more and more innovative, trying to bring the information they hope to teach to life for their students.

What Pokemon Go has to teach us is that we can’t beat a game that encompasses real-life adventure with digital engagement. What we need to learn is that Pokemon Go is a language that we are positive our children will understand. We must use that as a tool to try to relay information in a way that is relatable, understandable, and meaningful in the eyes of a young person.

The same can be said for any of the multitude of distractors from religious education. We have to stop seeing soccer practice as a distraction from the work we are trying to do and we have to start seeing it as an opportunity to engage youth in a new way. Jewish communities should be building sports curricula into their religious school programs, to ensure that those students who find sports as their connection to something greater don’t have to leave the walls of the congregation to find what they are looking for. If music is their key to access, we should be providing creative outlets for expression. If our children are telling us that they are interested in something, it is our job to be creative enough to find a space for it within our community, rather than forcing them to make a choice.

If religious institutions can combine all of the facets of daily life into their communities, it will allow members and students the chance to feel as though the congregation is their headquarters for everything that they need in life. When we view Pokemon Go as an opportunity to relate to our students, rather than as a distraction from the information we are trying to impart, than we run the risk of ostracizing our young people and forcing them to choose between being learning and fun. In a perfect world, it is our job to ensure that we are able to do both.

August 30th: Sidelined for the Silenced

We are officially at the point in the football season where we will hear far too much about second string quarterbacks and the gossip that go with them. What we don’t necessarily expect is that it will be their behavior on the sidelines that gets our attention, rather than their play on the field.

As if Colin Kaepernick didn’t have enough going on in his life, fighting for a roster spot on the San Francisco 49ers, he went and brought the limelight upon himself on Saturday night when, during a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, he refused to stand during the National Anthem. When asked about it after the game, he told reporters that he had no intention of standing in respect for a nation that refuses to show respect to its minority citizens.

What has followed has been a storm of criticism and analysis. Everyone from former teammates and coaches to presidential candidates have weighed in on whether or not Kaepernick was right to use his status as an NFL player to call attention to an issue he deemed pertinent.

When taking a step back from whether or not you agree with Colin Kaepernick, it is important to acknowledge the courage and humanitarian nature of what he is doing. This is a man who is using his influence to try to make changes to the world around him, calling for social justice and for equality. This is something that athletes don’t do nearly often enough. But sports have always served as the cutting edge for some of the world’s greatest social justice campaigns. Jackie Robinson not only broke baseball’s color barrier, but also sparked a national conversation about African Americans participating in American life. Muhammad Ali used his status as a boxer to protest the Vietnam War, a decision that went far beyond the ring. Now, athletes across the sports world are attempting to serve as leaders to fix the racial tensions in our world, and are attempting to use their fame as sports stars to make the world a better place. To look around and see yourself as a member of a much larger society, and to understand that you have the ability to do something to call attention to and hopefully make an impact on the greater community is a worthwhile and powerful step toward making a positive impact.

Kaepernick’s one mistake is that he was quite literally sitting on the sidelines of the discussion. It was his inaction that is causing a scene, his refusal to participate in something that is causing the nation to focus on the issues. He would have been better served going out and DOING something, going out and getting active in making the world a better place. As an NFL football player, he had the opportunity to use his actions to spark MORE action from a multitude of individuals. What happened instead was that his inaction caused people to talk about Colin Kaepernick, rather than the issue of the role of race relations in the United States.

The flag is a symbol, and a vital one to so many who have served this country in a multitude of ways. We can argue for weeks about whether or not you agree with his decision to sit during the National Anthem. But that is exactly his point. He wants us to be arguing, to be discussing, to be rallying together as an American population to decide where we need to go together. He is hoping that his choices will rile up Americans to the point of actually looking at the world around them and demanding that it get a little better. In many ways, it has nothing to do with whether or not Colin Kaepernick stands on the sidelines or sits, and it has everything to do with what you think about next time you hear that National Anthem. His point was to say that the song is supposed to embody freedom and justice, and he won’t stand until the country matches those values. In his eyes, he doesn’t believe it does.

The goal is not for all NFL players to sit during the national anthem. Quite the opposite, in fact. The goal is for all Americans to thoroughly discuss what is essentially important to our nation and be willing to do what we think is right to move us forward in a way that acknowledges our flaws and demands that we work hard to make this country great. We can only hope that America is listening to WHY Kaepernick did what he did, not simply THAT he did it in the first place.

March 14th: A Spotlight in the Dark

When you have never heard of the movie that wins the Academy Award for best picture, you know you’ve been taken out of society a little bit. After running to YouTube to watch the trailer for “Spotlight,” I was ready to get to the movie theater right away.

Earlier this week, I saw the film, based on true events, about the 2001 investigation of allegations against Boston-area Catholic priests, accused of sexually abusing children all across the city. Aside from being a masterfully written and performed piece of cinema, the movie was profoundly disturbing, as it centered around a tragic question: How could something so terrible have happened so often before anyone decided to do anything about it?

The most startling and painful image of the entire experience was at the very end of the movie. As the final scene faded to darkness, white letters appeared on the screen, saying that abuse allegations had been uncovered in the following cities. A page appeared, showing well over 40 names of cities all across the country. An audible groan was let out by the audience, mortified by the staggering number. If only we knew that the page was going to be replaced by another long list, and another. In all, 5 screens full of cities all across America and the world cried out, demonstrating the grave problem that had so deeply infected the Catholic Church and society as a whole.

Walking out of the theater, I was particularly disturbed by the role that religion played in the molestation cases. A few times throughout the movie, a character said that they didn’t fight back or tell anybody about what his or her priest had done because they made an association between the priest and God. If this is how a man of God was going to behave, who I am to argue, they reasoned? How I am going to show my face in church after what I have seen, what’s been done to me?

As someone going into a career in institutional religion, I think this movie is a must-see for anyone who hopes to serve a community. It speaks to the terrible lengths to which an individual can take the power of holiness, and the unfathomable abuses that one can get away with if we allow it.

I am disgusted that someone who pretends to speak words of faith, words of holiness, could possibly bring themselves to commit such acts. I am horrified that so many people were willing to turn their attention away, to fail to speak out against the crimes committed in the name of the Church. I am furious that, as a religious community, we allowed 5 pages worth of cities to fall victim to a trend that has now ruined religion and spirituality for thousands, if not millions of people all across the world.

If we have anything to learn from this movie, it is that we have an obligation to hold our religious leaders accountable. These people are not without their faults, even without their atrocities. When we make excuses for our leaders, in any field, we are telling them and their peers that their behavior is acceptable, and that they should have the power to so devastatingly influence the public’s view of religion and God.

And don’t be mistaken: pedophelia and sexual abuse are not the only level of immorality that are being ignored by too many. Sexual immorality with congregants, financial dishonesty, and a general failure to live up to the standard of spiritual guidance are all problems that we, as faith-based leaders need to combat and need to be held accountable for.

Spotlight was a phenomenal movie with the ability to not only expose a dark part of America’s religious history, but also to inspire us to work to ensure that we stop this kind of conduct in its tracks. It is an opportunity for Americans to accept the failures of the past and to hopefully begin to heal, and to move toward a place where religion can once again be a place of comfort and safety, rather than fear and intimidation.