A Community Basks In His Light
The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 24, 2004
A boy overcomes disability to celebrate bar
mitzvah.
By Kristen A. Graham, Philadelphia Inquirer
Staff (Reprinted with permission)
His name means my light, and to the community of people who love him, he is that. He prays with such intensity and spirit, and with such frequency and concentration and joy, that some call him "the little rebbe," or rabbi.
He has Down syndrome. Even so, shortly after his 13th birthday, Lior Liebling did what many young Jewish boys could not do - lead an intense, three-hour coming-of-age service.
It is no wonder, then, that Lior's bar mitzvah was one of the most joyous days Congregation Mishkan Shalom has ever seen. In a way, the Mount Airy boy had prepared for May 15 his whole life.
Mordechai Liebling first noticed his son's gift for davening - praying - when the boy was perhaps 3. Even at that age, Lior would bow and sway, an enthusiast in a prayer shawl that friends had hand-made for him.
He would wake up and ask, "Is it Shabbas?," so hopeful that each day would be the Jewish sabbath.
Lior was the third of four children born to Liebling, a prominent rabbi and
for years the director of the Jewish Reform Foundation, and
Rabbi Devora Bartnoff. The boy's spirituality surprised even
his learned parents.
Bartnoff died of breast cancer when Lior
was 6. Yoni, the second child, was 10 at the time.
"I was
completely lost," Yoni recalls of his mother's death in 1997.
"But soon after, I got a huge hug from Lior and realized that
things weren't going to be so bad with this guy by my side."
Lior has that effect on people. Ilana Trachtman picked up
on it right away. A New York producer and filmmaker, she met
the Lieblings at a prayer retreat last year and was struck
by this loud, off-key, completely absorbed voice praying with
her.
She met with Liebling and Lynne Iser, Lior's adored stepmother,
who had been looking for someone to tell the boy's story on
film. Everyone agreed Trachtman was the person to do it.
"I didn't make a conscious decision," she said. "I just ended
up doing this. I'm maxing out my credit cards. My apartment
has become a production office."
The film will be called Praying
With Lior. She still needs financing, but Trachtman is confident
that it will fall into place. Mishkan Shalom, the family's
Manayunk synagogue, made a rare exception to allow filming
during Shabbat morning service, and the film crew has blended
into the family over months of shooting. "It never occurred
to me that we need to include somebody for our sake - that
they benefit from it, but we do, too," Trachtman said. "To
me, Lior is like a metaphysical puzzle - here's a person with
mental handicaps, but who has this enlightened soul."
May 15 dawned sunny and sticky, but Lior was immune to the
heat, the cameras and the pre-service fussing and assembling
of hundreds of people. Lengthy and largely in Hebrew, Lior's
bar mitzvah was a happy, holy festival: There were drums and
tambourines, dancing and hugs when Lior and his parents walked
the Torah around the room.
Two years of deliberate practice showed: Lior's voice was
certain. He was careful not to go too fast or look down too
much. During the davening, his body rocked. His eyes shut
halfway. He looked serious and did not stumble over the difficult
Hebrew sounds. "Today, you say, 'I am ready to carry your
prayers on my shoulders and in my heart,' " Rabbi Yael Levy
told Lior. "Aren't we a lucky community? We know you can do
it. We know you can carry those prayers."
When it was time for his d'var Torah, his speech, the packed
synagogue sat forward. "I am thankful for my mommy, Devora,
because she is always in my heart, davening with me," Lior
said, as congregants grabbed for tissues. Using the Hebrew
word for God, he said, "My heart is full of Hashem when I
daven. I talk to Hashem when I am davening. I like talking
to Hashem. I feel happy, excited! I love davening. It gives
me energy, gives me power, and makes me strong."
Perhaps, his parents remarked later, Lior's proudest moment was when
his Mishkan Shalom name tag - the sign he had fully joined
the community - was draped around his neck. "It was a highlight
of his young life," Iser said. "It wasn't about getting things.
For Lior, it was, 'I got to lead and join the community.'
"
The celebration afterward was equally joyous. Face alight,
shirt untucked, Lior whirled on the dance floor. When family
and friends sat him in a chair and lifted him high, he gripped
the sides but never stopped smiling.
Below the ballroom where the party blasted on, family and
friends trooped in, sat in front of a camera, and spoke to
Lior. People talked about how his singing frees them to sing
a little louder. About how he centers them on what's important
- happiness, letting go, touching others. They said he was
a role model, a teacher.
Rabbi Marsha Pik-Nathan was a friend of Lior's mother and
father at rabbinical school and has watched him blossom. "This
is his thing," she said. "He prays. He's found a way to be
in the world instead of being apart from the world. He's really
everybody's love." Bobbie Breitman, a longtime Lior supporter,
said that praying with him "gave me answers to questions I
hadn't even asked," she said. "What today is is such a triumph
of love over loss."
