Cyberthought by Rabbi Zelizer -- pubished in NJ Star Ledger August 12, 2012

Rabbi Gerald L. Zelizer

For a rabbi, Sunday is a major workday, occupied with religious services, funerals and weddings. So it has been tough gerrymandering my schedule in order to attend Jets home games. But since 1973, reaching all the way back to Shea Stadium, I have managed to do so.

There was the time when I changed from my suit into game clothes in the bathroom of a cemetery after officiating at an unveiling; and another when I broke a few laws rushing back to my temple at the conclusion of an afternoon game in order to be on the pulpit at sundown for the beginning of a major Jewish holy day. I did this because seeing my team in person was a welcome respite from the 24/7 demands of serving my 400-family congregation.

At first, a congregant gifted me tickets. More recently, I invested thousands of dollars in PSLs and season tickets. My son and now my grandson sit with me. During those four decades, I have experienced jubilation and degradation, surely more of the latter. Being on the losing end of championship games, most recently in Pittsburgh in 2010, were dizzying disappointments.

It seems that the downer of too-frequent interceptions whether thrown by Richard Todd or Mark Sanchez, the humiliation of sitting through every game of the 1-15 Rich Kotite year, the draft busts from Blair Thomas to Vernon Gholston - they all overwhelmed the few quarters of uplifting moments. The defeats challenged my Jobian forbearance.

And now Tim Tebow arrives to test my theological dexterity as he bears witness right in front of me to a religion so different than my own. What shall I make of it from my seat a little more or less than a football field away?

The stereotype has the wise rabbi bracketing his sage advice with, "On the one hand" "on the other hand". I need three hands to comment on this one.

On the one hand, there is something incongruous about such public displays of religion at football games. What has faith got to do with the broken bones, concussions and stingers? Tebow is not the first, although he is the most recent to prance his religion.

Before Tebow, there was Kurt Warner thanking Jesus after a victory in the Super Bowl, and Reggie White, minister of defense, excoriating homosexuality. In 1993, I watched from my seat as Jets defensive lineman Dennis Byrd lay paralyzed on the field with a broken spine while players on both teams kneeled in prayer. Praying for what, I thought? That the Almighty should miraculously reverse this life-threatening injury when Byrd and all the others knowingly submit themselves to God-defying crashes and crushes?

What do God and faith have to do with it? Fran Tarkenton, an NFL quarterback from 1961 to 1978, told the Wall Street Journal that locker room prayers included, "Let there not be any injuries". Really? Isn't there something theologically absurd in the first place about demonstrating religion in the same time and space where the possibilities of God's interventional assistance are being tested to the extreme? Tarkenton added, "After a moment of devotion, our team would all shout in unison, 'Now let's go kill those SOBs..'"

On the other hand, at least Tebow's combination of religion and sports is genuine. The reference to John 3:16 he superimposed over his eye black in college required his bearing witness to Jesus Christ, his Savior, in public. By all accounts, he does not swear or drink and does charity work. Tebow's authenticity contrasts with the many NFL players whose off-field behavior belies their professions of religiosity.

Now for the third hand. I have invested almost half a century in hoping to inspire Tim Tebow Torah types within my own faith, individuals whose lives bear witness to the tenets of Judaism. Some have. Still, Jews are in first place for two worrisome statistics on religious behavior. More than 50 percent of Jews profess nonbelief in God - this according to Robert Putnam and David Campell in "Amazing Grace". And Gallup reports that Jews attend weekly religious services less than any other major religious group.

So I reluctantly admire the pristine faith of a young man like Tebow, who prays as he plays and preaches as he practices.

I Tebow to Tebow. Hats off to his public demonstration of faith in my face at Jets games. Or perhaps, more accurately, in the way of my own religion, "Yarmulkes on to Tim Tebow".