Sure, a lot of Jewish men never had a Bar Mitzvah. My father and uncle didn’t, prior to WWII the family was generally non-practicing. They considered it later on but didn’t do it but I think many others from that generation did.
My stepmom didn’t have a bat mitzvah as a child because it wasn’t done in the early 1950s. She had an adult B’nai Mitzvah in the 80s with a few other women in the same situation.
Referring to all of them as a B’nai Mitzvah is a great idea that I hadn’t considered. I’d be willing to bet that my childhood synagogue does that too. It was always a very progressive place and the current rabbi is a gay man with a husband.
Oy vey! The older members of the ultra-reform ultra-liberal synagogue where I had my Bar Mitzvah in the 60s wouldn’t have reacted well back then. They have probably changed a lot since then and it’s good to hear other congregations have also. I’m not sure what my generation of Boomers would have thought about it at the time. I don’t recall it ever being discussed in any way.
The rabbi from my childhood was there for like 40 years until maybe fifteen years ago. The current one was chosen by the congregation that skews pretty old. To my knowledge it wasn’t an issue at all and if anything is a point of pride.
To start another related hijack, one of the perks of coming of age is that you can be a part of a minyan which is the ten adults needed to be able to hold a religious service. I was actually called upon once and wrote about it here.
Fascinating. So in a leap year, are all Adar birthdays celebrated in the first Adar, or do you then keep track of which Adar you were born in?
[Edited: correction]
It depends. If your were born in Adar in a non-leap year, you celebrate your birthday in Adar Bet. If you were born in either Adar (Aleph or Bet) in a leap year, you celebrate in the Adar you were born in.
Likewise, in leap years, all of the Adar holidays (notably Purim) and other anniversaries are celebrated in Adar Bet. I remember as a kid checking the calendar at the start of each school year to see if we had to wait an extra month between the Hanukkah and Purim vacations.
I did consider the possibility that it was the second one that counted, not the first, but decided that it would just make my post unnecessarily wordy to include it.
(and I think I already knew that Hebrew uses letters for numbers, but if I did, I had forgotten it)
What happens if you’re born on the 30th of Adar in a leap year?
According to my information (which may need to be confirmed by someone actually familiar with this Hebrew calendar) second Adar only has 29 days so that issue never occurs.
But if I’m wrong and it is an issue I’m assuming they solve it the way gentile culture solves the problem of a birthday on February 29 in non-leap years - you celebrate it on February 28, the last day of February.
Wiki tells me Adar Aleph has 30 days and that the intercalary month precedes the usual month of Adar. That’s disappointing. I thought the bit of celebrating on Aleph Beta’s date was a great way of avoiding the issue as it’s found using the Gregorian calendar. Oh, well. Best laid plans…
I just found this in Mathematics of the Jewish Calendar::
A problem arises if an event first occurred in Adar, Adar Rishon or Adar Sheni, or on 30th of Cheshvan or Kislev, as these days do not occur every year.
For example, a boy becomes Bar Mitzvah (legally an adult male) on his 13th birthday. If a boy is born in Adar and 13 years later it is a leap year, his Bar Mitzvah is in Adar Sheni. If a boy is born in Adar Rishon or Adar Sheni and 13 years later it is a leap year, his Bar Mitzvah is in Adar Rishon or Adar Sheni as the case may be. However, if a boy is born in Adar Rishon or Adar Sheni and 13 years later it is not a leap year, his Bar Mitzvah is in Adar. Take two boys born in 5746, which was a leap year, on 16th Adar Rishon and 2nd Adar Sheni. Both were Bar Mitzvah in 5759, not a leap year. If in both cases the ceremony was on the Shabbat after their 13th birthdays, the older one had his on 18th Adar and the younger one on 4th Adar, two weeks earlier. However, if he was born on 30th Adar Rishon, and 13 years later it is not a leap year, he becomes Bar Mitzvah on 1st Nisan.
If a boy is born on 30th of Cheshvan or Kislev and 13 years later there is not a 30th of the month, he becomes Bar Mitzvah on 1st Kislev or Tevet respectively.
The same rules apply to when a girl becomes Bat Mitzvah (legally an adult female), which is on her 12th birthday (or 13th in reform Jews).
Ah, so instead of using the last day of the shorter version of a named month the day of celebration is bumped to the first day of the next month. OK, I feel I have learned something today. Thanks.
Thank you. I really find different calendars fascinating. It’s amazing how our species tries to put order to the order of the universe, isn’t it?
I was an Adar II baby, screws things up every so often because I get stuck with a kosher-for-Passover birthday cake depending on the calendar.
My Bar Mitzvah was about 6 weeks after my birthday in Sivan - May is much nicer than March here.