Rabbi David A. Lipper
About Rabbi David Lipper
Rabbi David A. Lipper joined Temple Israel July 2001. His previous pulpit was at Temple Emanuel in McAllen, Texas. Rabbi Lipper, a native Texan, and his wife Dora, have three children - Benjamin,
Miryam, and Dena Jo.
Rabbi Lipper is a doctoral candidate at Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago and a graduate of Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where he was ordained and earned a graduate degree in Hebrew Letters. He also earned an undergraduate degree in political science at the University of Texas.
During his last year at Hebrew Union College, he served as a rabbinic intern at Temple Israel in Dayton.
After his ordination, he served six years as rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El B'ne Jeshurun in Milwaukee, where
he increased the presence of the Jewish community among the black community through the Gingerbread House youth
and family shelter; brought young families to the synagogue through activities and educational events;
led two missions to Israel; and created a format for interfaith wedding blessings that became a model for
the rabbis in the area.
In 1994, he became rabbi at Temple Emanuel in McAllen, where he sutured a rift between Hispanic and Anglo
members of the congregation and between the more traditional and classical Reform members.
Rabbi Lipper says that the basis for his rabbinate is a quote from Proverbs: "Where there is no vision, the people perish," and he is inspired by the Kenyan proverb, "The world was not given to us by our ancestors, it was loaned to us by our children." "Through our vision of growth and learning," he says, "we must ensure the future for all generations to come. My life is full of vision. I have a sense of where I want to go as a Jew, as a rabbi, as a teacher. I have a vision of where I want my community to be.
"I want to be part of ever-evolving Judaism that is respectful of the past yet open to the future. I see that at Temple Israel. I see a group of people on a journey and I want to take that journey with them."
From the Rabbi’s study ...
Rabbi David A. Lipper
SERMON
April 20, 2007
The Death of Possibility
Our country is in shock at the slaughter of 32 Virginia Tech students and teachers. Our national consciousness has been dominated for days by the senseless deaths and the wounding of dozens more on Virginia Tech's campus. You and I have tried to make sense of the utter madness. And the media during this past week has reported on every conceivable element of the worst shooting rampage in our nation's history as we learned more about the lives cut short by a 23-year-old man named Cho Seung-Hui.
More and more days pass without answers. It is all too likely that this week's horror will become a historical benchmark against which future campus and school shootings will be compared.
I have been thinking a lot about the death this week of innocence. The passing of infinite possibilities that could have been. To me, that is the greatest tragedy of all. Had they lived, they might have gone on to change the world as teachers, military officers or engineers -- but the killer who cut so many lives short at Virginia Tech snatched all that away.
And I have thought very long about the professor, Liviu Librescu, a survivor of the Holocaust, a man whose life had been colored by man’s greatest inhumanity, sacrificing his life so that others may live. Selflessly he stood in front of the door to his classroom and stopped the carnage from entering as student’s leapt from 2nd floor windows to safety. He died on all days, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
It is likely that too many of us will fail to ask and seek and answer to the most important question of all: Why are we, our society and our culture, tolerating the deaths of so many of our college students? The national media seemingly lacks the capacity to report and analyze what has become accepted violence and death on campuses around the country.
Fatal mass shootings in our nation's elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges number just over 250 killed in the past 80 years. While shooting violence is worsening, it does not approach the toll of other violence on our college youth.
We all seem unable to assimilate the fact that thousands of college students are dying violently each year. About 1,100 students each and every year will commit suicide, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and four of every five young people who attempt suicide exhibit clear warning signs.
The rate of drug overdoses among teens and young adults more than doubled over the five-year period from 1999 to 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. And each year, on average, there are 1,400 drinking-related deaths among college students nationwide, according to the Task Force on College Drinking. The Task Force estimates that binge drinking by college students also contributes to 70,000 cases of sexual assault or rape each year.
The Virginia Tech murders are horrible. And because they are dramatic, they have our full attention. But for all our sakes, I hope we also ask ourselves why our society permits what has become the routine slaughter of a far greater number of young people on our college campuses. We should also ask ourselves why we've done so little to understand the causes of all these senseless deaths on our campuses.
The pressures and the struggles, the desire to rise to the top of a class, the need to have the most lucrative position has caused our kids to lose their perspective on the world. The stresses society places on children just emerging into their own lives must bee looked at. The value that we place on success and advancement must be viewed in the light of today’s pressures. Finally, the lifestyle and the media hype and yes, the movies and video games and music that denigrates people must also be addressed. All of these things together have created a culture in which violence is tolerated in a way that society should not accept. Now is the time for challenge and change.
As we grieve for those murdered and wounded in Blacksburg, I hope we can all agree that it is important to address the larger scope of violence on our college campuses and deal with the underlying causes. We must reject death and violence as a rite of passage on college campuses.
I want to close with some words written over 40 years ago following another tradegy. They were written by Rabbi Robert Kahn, my mentor. He wrote:
Weep, Americans, Weep
Weep for the climate which spawned this violence
For a world so filled with hatred
For those who lash out
Lash out in words
Lash out in gestures
Lash out in violence
Weep, Americans , Weep!
If our tears are to have any meaning, then with them we must water the furrows of tomorrow’s planting.
32 Teachers and Students are dead
But what they stood for lives
What they believed is still with us
What they lived by is still vital.
All of us must share their hope and their possibilities
All of us must give their lives meaning
With our sympathies and our hearts laden with mourning for names we have only known in the news
With dedication to memory and hope
With newfound potential and limitless possibilities
We ask God’s mercy on the victims of violence. .
May they always be remembered for blessing.
Amen
Return to Home Page Last revised 04/20/2007
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