Dear Doves,
      The Torah Reading this week is from Genesis including Chapters 18 and 19, the stories about the Lot family and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities on the plain. The portion is called Vayeira, which means "And He Appeared" from Genesis 18:1 to 22:24. There were not 10 righteous men in Sodom or Gomorrah, or in the 5 cities combined. Avram believed there were 10 righteous. Why did he care about Sodom being destroyed? Avram cared about Lot and his family who lived in Sodom. Lot was the beloved nephew of Avram, his dead brother's son. It was deeply personal to Avram to do what he could to save Lot and his family from destruction. Was Sodom worth saving? No. There were not so few as 10 righteous men there. If there had been, as wicked as the place was, the angels said that it would have been spared.
      We can now ask ourselves a question for our days of Noah and Lot revisited. Where were the 10 righteous men at University Park, Pennsylvania, home of Penn State University, over the last 12 years? That basically is the period of time when some people began to wonder about inappropriate behavior by Jerry Sandusky towards boys under the age of puberty. The Grand Jury Report mentions that he is married and a father of adopted children. Are they proud of him now? Many have asked in the 10 days of tribulation for Pennsylvanians and others since the arrest of Jerry Sandusky on 11-5-2011, why did no one go to the police during those 12 years? According to the disturbing and very informative 23 page Grand Jury Report, someone had the courage and decency to do so. Who was it? It was a mother, the mom of victim # 6 of the 8 boys in The Grand jury Report. She complained to Sandusky and to the police when she learned that he had showered with her son. The police investigated and no charges were filed. Little wonder that the 2 men who witnessed child rape did not go to the police. What happened to the janitor? He is in a nursing home with dementia and incapable of giving testimony under oath. For those 12 years, where were 10 righteous men among the coaches, administrators, janitors, police, and others? Where were the men to be the  defenders of those boys and their rights? Did the charitable foundation established by Jerry Sandusky, the Second Mile Foundation, get used by other men, acting as predators toward many other boys? Was there a covert group of men among the contributors to whom the boys were pimped out? Child prostitution? This was mentioned by guest Jeffrey Kuhner , a Washington Times columnist, on The World Over on EWTN (Roman Catholic Network) with host Raymond Arroyo in the latest program of 11-10-2011. Such a worst case scenario would be far more than one child rapist, rather an empowering community of child rapists, networking through the Second Mile Foundation statewide all over Pennsylvania! Including Penn State University alumni?   In Sodom there was a large group of sexual predators who wanted Lot to hand over his male guests that they "might know them." Their planned nocturnal activities were not intended to be like an ice cream social.
      Do I believe the stories in Genesis about the days of Noah and Lot? Yes. There were not 10 righteous at Sodom. Where are the 10 righteous men, or more, in University Park, Pennsylvania in Autumn of 2011? Were they at the candlelight vigil to remember the victims and their families the evening of 11-11-11? I hope so. Come quickly, Lord...
 
With Love and Shalom,
Jean