April 1, 2005/Adar II 21 5765, Volume 57, No. 31
ASU Hillel honors Rabbi Lee
DONNA V. COHEN
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 Rabbi Barton Lee has counseled and befriended thousands of students during his 33 years as director of Hillel at Arizona State University. Photo by Donna V. Cohen |
The director of Hillel, Rabbi Barton Lee, sits behind a large wooden desk in the office located only a few feet away from the window. For more than three decades, he has counseled and befriended thousands of young people like the couple in the picture who have walked through Hillel's doors. Next week, at a special fund-raising celebration in a year that coincides with the 350th anniversary of Jews in America, Hillel at ASU will honor Lee for his 35 years in the rabbinate.
Lee admits that he has in many ways grown up with his students, having come to ASU 33 years ago as a young single man who had just begun his rabbinical career. Now, at age 62 and the father of two teenagers, he reflects on his ongoing work and what he describes as the "dramatic changes" he has witnessed firsthand over the years.
"When I first came to Hillel, students would often come to recapture an experience of Shabbat that they had at home," Lee says. "More and more, I'm finding that people come to Hillel to discover what an experience of Shabbat might be."
He says that during at least the past 10 years, fewer students come to Hillel possessing a strong Jewish background.
"I find that the level of Jewish knowledge tends to be less now, and that Jewish 'stuff' is much less of interest and priority to parents than it used to be," he says, providing a broad definition of the trends he has seen. "But those of us who believe that the vast literature of Judaism is an intellectual adventure and that it enriches - in a very real way - individual communal life are involved in a marketing endeavor to persuade Jews that they need this stuff. But I don't think any of it happens without personal relationships."
Many of these relationships endure long after the students graduate.
"Students are the primary work at Hillel and have all types of needs," says Shelley Cohn, director of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, a 1976 graduate of ASU and current president of Hillel's board. "The students have a wide range of questions about their own Jewish identity, their issues at being at school and their own personal relationships."
"He will always be my rabbi," says Aron Karabel, a 2001 ASU graduate and third-year law student at Albany Law School in New York.
"He taught me that you should be proud of your heritage and your Judaism," Karabel says. "He helped me connect with Judaism in a way that will most likely change the rest of my life. He is always there for anyone - whether they are Jewish or not. He is respectful and compassionate toward students."
Leaning back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, Lee talks philosophically about one of his favorite topics: educating students. The light blue shirt that he is wearing brings out the pigment in his sky-blue eyes and a full head of wavy silver hair frames a kind face, a gentle countenance that can effortlessly transform from seriousness to laughter in a split-second.
"People in college are still in the process of formation," he says. "They are open to ideas and ideals and willing often to consider things that, by the time people get set in their ways and are in congregations, are not as open.
"The important thing I try to do is to get to know somebody and try to figure out who they are and try to connect what Judaism is about to their lives."
Lee refers to an essay about Jewish education by the German Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzwieg to make his point.
"He said in prior days you began with Torah and tried to make a connection in people's lives. Rosenzweig proposed that in our time, Jewish educational effort is to start with life and connect life with Torah, and I really believe that that's the case. That whatever we do, whatever we talk about, you can't start with Leviticus, Exodus or Isaiah. You have to start with drinking and drugs and relationships, relationships with parents, relationships with roommates, and issues of morality, issues of ethics. What's going on in their gut is where you start and you bring Torah to that. Much of the effort is to show people the relevance of Jewish tradition to their lives."
The value of personal connection is a lesson the rabbi says he learned from his own teachers.
"My religious school director used to have us over for Shabbat lunch at his home after our bar mitzvah lessons and he would ask us, 'Do you want some 'gleedah?' which is the (Hebrew) word for ice cream, and 'bubble water,' which was his way of saying soda," recalls Lee. "When I got to my own student pulpits I found myself taking my students out to Baskin and Robbins and taking the high school kids to the movies ... I realized that my rabbinate was about making those connections with young people. And from personal connection grows trust and openness to what you have to say.
"Judaism and life are the same subject," he says, quoting Marcie, his wife of 28 years. He says that his goal is to make that idea evident in his teaching, in his relationships with the students, and in the programming at Hillel.
Besides positions as rabbi and executive director of Hillel at ASU, Lee has also taught students as a faculty associate in the university's departments of religious studies and history since 1989. He was also an instructor in American Jewish History at Phoenix College and a Hebrew instructor at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He will be honored at the spring fund-raiser to be held at the Arizona Historical Society Museum on April 11. According to Hillel Assistant Director Shotsy Abramson, the organization hopes to raise $90,000 at the event, which will feature musical entertainment by Cantor Marc Philippe, former cantor of Beth El Congregation in Phoenix, and tributes from past and current students.
Lee says that raising money at this time is "critical." Besides caring for the wellbeing of his students, Lee says he has financial concerns regarding Hillel, which is a constituent agency of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix.
"I'd love to see Hillel become a higher community priority again so that we are able to have the personnel and time to do more with the students," he says. "I hope people will recognize the critical nature of the work we do on campus. One of the things that makes me happy is that everywhere I go in the community, I find former students who are involved - from Chabad to humanistic Judaism - across the spectrum."
Testimonials from former and current students, all from different walks of life and many of whom are now living in various parts of the country, were profoundly similar in their reflections of Lee.
"Rabbi Lee is such an incredible human being," says Stephanie Lee (no relation), who met him 10 years ago as "a nervous freshman."
And neither are his talents lacking in the political arena.
"(He) was always a calming influence," says Linda Pressman, an ASU graduate student. She recalls the "opposing factions" in her group in the 1980s when she was at Hillel. "There were some right-wing students and some left, along with some students who were making aliyah and planning to become Orthodox West Bank settlers, and others who were non-Jewish students interested in Israel."
She said Lee could bring all the sides together "in peaceful compromise to remind us of our similar interest: the peace and security of Israel and the future of the Jewish people."
Lee acknowledges that one of the benefits of his job is staying in touch with students as they move on to the next phases in their lives. Often, they ask that he officiate their weddings. This, he says, is "a great pleasure." In fact, he adds, it is "frosting on the cake."
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Details
- What: "Celebrate the Journeys," a spring fund-raiser honoring Rabbi Barton Lee
- Who: Hillel at ASU
- When: 7 p.m., Monday, April 11
- Where: Arizona Historical Society Museum, 1300 N. College Ave., Tempe
- Cost: $90
- Call: 480-967-7563