Rabbi David L. Lieber, the president emeritus of what is now American Jewish University (AJU) and the guiding force behind Etz Haim (“Tree of Life”), the 1,560-page modern Torah commentary for Conservative Judaism published in 2001, died this week at his Beverly Hills home, at the age of 83.
As noted by the Los Angeles Times, he was born in Poland in 1925, came to the United States at age two, graduated from City College of New York in 1944, and was not only ordained as a rabbi but held a master’s degree from Columbia and a doctorate in Hebrew Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was the first president of the University of Judaism (renamed AJU last year) and served in that capacity for 29 years.
He built the UJ into a major institution with programs for undergraduates, graduates, an MBA program for nonprofit management, continuing education for adults, and the first rabbinic program on the West Coast for Conservative Judaism. When he went to emeritus status in 1993, he returned to full-time teaching and was elected in 1996 to as president of the Rabbinical Assembly (the international association of Conservative rabbis), while devoting himself to Etz Haim as its general editor. He continued to teach at AJU until last year.
Dr. Robert Wexler, the current AJU president, who worked for decades with Dr. Lieber, gave an eloquent summation of his life and career at a memorial service at AJU this week, describing as follows three of the sayings he treasured from his association with him:
[First], “Bob, you can always tell someone to go to hell later.” Any of us who are prone to occasional flashes of anger can benefit from that wisdom. And Dr. Lieber used to claim that he borrowed that line actually from Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin at Stephen Wise Temple.
Another phrase he used often comes directly from Jewish sources: [Hebrew]. That’s kind of hard to translate exactly into English. It’s similar to “all good things come to those who wait.” But really, it says that good things come to those who work hard and try not to force the situation. If you do your job, and if you have patience, success will be yours.
His most insightful saying is pure, original David Lieber. He often observed to me that human beings can forsee things, but they can’t “for-feel” them. In other words, we can often use our intellect to figure out what the future will bring, and we may even be right. But we really don’t know how we’re going to feel about something until it actually happens to us.
Whatever words of wisdom David Lieber had for others, he certainly applied them to himself and to his own life. He was a man of remarkable patience and kindness. He accepted whatever life had to offer, and he was one of those rare individuals who followed the rabbinic dictate [Hebrew]: we are required to bless God when bad things happen, just as we are when we enjoy the good. David Lieber lived that philosophy.
Along with the extraordinary range of accomplishments, Dr. Lieber raised a remarkable family, judging from the many moving eulogies they gave at the service. But Dr. Wexler’s concluding sentence is perhaps the highest praise of all: “David Lieber lived that philosophy.”
He was a rabbi, a scholar, an educator, a gentle-man, a husband/father/grandfather, who not only studied Judaism and expanded the study of its basic book, but lived its teachings throughout a remarkable life.