Zippel Saves Troubled Teens

Salt Lake Tribune

The most traumatic moment of Richard Litt’s life was watching two men escort his out-of-control teenage son from their Michigan home in the middle of the night to take him to a wilderness-therapy program in Utah — at his father’s request.

One of the proudest moments came less than a year later as Litt watched his son speak at a menorah lighting at the Utah Governor’s Mansion. His son spoke about his Jewish faith, his journey from brokenness to stability and the Utah rabbi who helped him get there. Tears of pride trickled down Litt’s face.

“He didn’t sound like a teenager, he sounded like a grown man,” Litt said. “I couldn’t have been more proud or more appreciative of what Rabbi Zippel had done.”

Utah, which has a relatively small Jewish population, isn’t a place one might expect to find hundreds of distraught Jewish teens reconnecting with their faith. But Rabbi Benny Zippel has made it such a place — to the surprise of many, including himself.

For 19 years, Zippel, through his Project H.E.A.R.T. (Hebrew Education for At-Risk Teens), has been visiting treatment centers, such as the one Litt’s son attended after wilderness therapy, to talk with Jewish teens about their faith, their lives and God’s role in their recovery.

Parents nationwide send their teens to the treatment centers for months or years at a time for afflictions ranging from depression to drug abuse to eating disorders.

Such centers proliferate in Utah partly because laws here allow parents to place teens without the children’s consent, said Glen Zaugg, president of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs and president and CEO of Heritage School in Provo.

They are not places the bearded, Italian-born rabbi ever expected his work to take him when he moved to Salt Lake City in 1992 as a recently ordained rabbi with Chabad Lubavitch, a Hasidic movement that aims to bring all Jews closer to their faith. Chabad Lubavitch also seeks to help all people become more aware of God, though it does not try to convert non-Jews to Judaism.

Soon after Zippel arrived in Utah, a call from Southern California changed his expectations. A Jewish man phoned to ask the rabbi if he could reach out to his teen, who was in a treatment center.

“The first thought that crossed my mind,” Zippel recalled, “was, ‘What is a Jewish 15-year-old boy from Southern California, from the L.A. area, doing in Provo, Utah?’ ”

The message spreads

But Zippel fulfilled the father’s request, visiting the boy about once a week to talk about Jewish holidays and help him fulfill the mitzvah, or religious duty, of wearing teffilin, small black leather boxes containing Torah verses and worn on the arm adjacent to the heart and on the head to demonstrate intellectual and emotional commitment to God.

One day, Zippel casually asked the teen if he was the only Jew at the center. The boy replied no, saying there were probably a dozen.

“I was amazed,” Zippel said, “that all these Jewish kids are here in our own little state of Utah, and they basically have no connection to Judaism whatsoever.”

He began to inquire at other treatment centers about whether he could work with their Jewish students as well.

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