It's common to prejudge a person's limitations.
The Lior Lieblings of the world prove just how wrong and risky a game that can be.
As reported in yesterday's Inquirer, 13-year-old Lior Liebling of Mount Airy took to the pulpit of the Congregation Mishkan Shalom recently for his bar mitzvah.
This was no ordinary religious rite of passage. (In Judaism, a bar mitzvah signals that a boy is taking adult religious responsibility.)
It was no ordinary event because Lior has Down syndrome, a genetic condition that causes mild to severe mental retardation. And it was no ordinary event - this is where preconceived notions joyously explode - because Lior has a gift that makes his condition irrelevant.
Lior, say his family and friends, has been touched by God. Since he was as young as perhaps 3, his prayers have had an unusual intensity and enthusiasm. Here's how he described to those at Mishkan Shalom the pleasure he gets from praying:
"It gives me energy, gives me power, and makes me strong."
Others who pray with him also feel that strength. Ask friend Bobbie Breitman. She said that praying with Lior "gave me answers to questions I hadn't even asked."
Filmmaker Ilana Trachtman filmed Lior's Bar Mitzvah for a documentary she is making called Praying with Lior.
Down syndrome is obviously a part of Lior, but it is not the defining part.
Lior's special sense of faith also highlights, as a Web site for the documentary puts it, "the values of heart and soul in a culture where accomplishments of the mind are usually valued above all else."
A life is the sum of all those values. That surely is a lesson worth taking to heart - and soul.
