Your bar/bat mitvzah memories

I only went to four B’nai Mitzvah, but it felt like fourteen. One side of my family is Jewish, and I also knew quite a few Jews growing up, but the real reason it feels like fourteen is because I found the parties interminable. I never attended any until I was around the age when my peers had them; my two Jewish cousins lived far away, and we didn’t attend synagogue nor were we otherwise that connected to that scene.

#1 was the dual Bat Mitzvah of two sisters who were about a year apart in age. I was a classmate of the younger sister. As soon as the invitation arrived, something was triggered in me. “I’m not going,” I announced (which was interesting, as while I knew what a B’nai Mitzvah was, I had no reason to have any particular opinion) to which my father responded, “Nah, you’ll start getting invited to a lot of things like this soon…”

The ceremony was interesting in the way that the girls took turns, and the Rabbi told a story about an American/Israeli who was recently abducted by Hamas members while hitch-hiking, and then was subsequently killed as commandos stormed the building to free him. He also told the story of Abraham and Isaac, which I would later realize to be ludicrous… anyway…

The party was painful. (Cleverly, as both girls played tennis, the theme was “Doubles.”) My stomach dropped at the sight of the dance floor and the sound of the music. I found myself wandering the room, hiding out in a long, narrow room behind the dance floor, and making many restroom visits. I remember hearing Boys II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You” and wondering if it was appropriate. One kid asked me to dance while I was sitting in a chair near the dance floor, staring into space. I muttered a decline, tried to unclog my nose, and scurried away. When my mother arrived, I implored her to “get me out of here.”

#2 was another classmate. He was from a mixed family as well, and their Reform congregation met in an office building, with a woman Rabbi, and he got to do some of his ceremony to the tune of “Scarborough Faire/Canticle.” His (Christian) Sunday School teacher spoke of her pride in him, which would have given Martin Luther a stroke. The party was in one of those conference/party rooms at a hotel, and I was able to faux-dance this time, but I still wasn’t happy. I remember that, before the dancing started, the DJ played “Mrs. Robinson,” and I wondered if I was the only one noticing the Jesus lyric. I saw a man get up and talk to the DJ, and I think that was the topic! I remember attaching spoons to my face, which some of the adults did (to their own faces) as well. The Bar-Mitzvah-Boy’s grandmother tried to talk to me into dancing with some kid who had no partner, and I politely declined. My parents were appalled that the host family left before all of the guests’ rides had arrived.

#3’s party was at the same (country club) location as #1. The Bar-Mitzvah-Boy was a long-term childhood friend of mine. My parents were at this one, and I remember just a bit of the ceremony. The party was more of the same, but this time the B-M-B was trying to cajole me into having more fun, and my parents were on hand to notice my numerous restroom visits. I lit one of the candles. The party featured a caricaturist. I remember discussing my idea for a science project involving adding a guidance system to a model rocket, which of course never materialized.

#4 was out-of-state, for the daughter of my parents’ friends. I remember next to nothing of the ceremony, but the party had an Archie Comics theme, loosely. I remember my brother really getting into the dancing, and either he or I nearly got backed into by a very large woman during the Hora or something similar. It was either this party or #3 where my father told me to do the “YMCA” dance, because the song was playing and it’s allegedly fun.

For these reasons and others, I never went to a single school dance, and I dreaded mandatory dance parties (connected to band trips and other such activities) for months in advance. In ninth grade I tried to make myself vomit to get out of one such trip, to no avail.

Thankfully, the possibility of my having such an event in my life was never even discussed.

I helped a kid with dyslexia prepare. He was very bright, but he was still struggling with reading Hebrew, although he had a nice voice. He chanted the maftir, which was a special maftir, so it was different from the 7th aliyah, and was very short, and said the blessing over it. He skipped the haftarah. He gave a really nice and thoughtful drash, and led all the parts of the service that are typically in English in the shul, which aren’t many, but there are a few, and he led the mourner’s kaddish. His younger brother led Anim Zmirot.

I also went to a bar mitzvah of a son of an Orthodox rabbi who had Down Syndrome. He was actually quite capable. He received his tallis from his parents, donned tallis for the first time, and said the blessings. He also was called to Torah and said the blessing. He gave a drash by having a conversation with his father about the portion (that was rehearsed), and it was nice, and he led Ein Kelohenu and Adon Olam. He also stood with his father at the bimah while his father and the cantor lead the service.

The university where my parents worked was getting PCs for all staff and faculty, which meant they were getting rid of tons of stuff like adding machines, electric typewriters, rolodexes, and other things that they wouldn’t need once they transitioned to computers. I got my father’s dept. to donate a bunch of stuff to a homeless shelter and a battered women’s transitional home, so people who were looking for work had office equipment for putting together resumes and writing cover letters. I got some friends to help me clean it up, and we got some donations of stuff like Wite-out and paper, and got one of out parents with a van to transport, and it ended up being the project for four of us.

My birthday was during the winter break, so my parents thought a lot of people we wanted to invite locally would be out of town, and a lot of our out of town relatives might get snowed in, and not make it (the country had just had three really bad winters-- a record cold one, followed by the “blizzard of '78” followed by another pretty cold winter, with a lot of snow, although not as bad as '78). So my parents decided to put my bat mitzvah service off until a few weeks after my actual birthday. There were no dates in late Feb. or early March available, and then someone pointed out to me that if I waited until just after Pesach, I could have portion Shemini, which was the original bat mitvah portion-- Mordechai Kaplan’s daughter’s portion-- the 58th anniversary. I had to have that.

I guess I was a little bit of a diva, because some people referred to the event as the “brat mitzvah,” but I was so psyched, I insisted on learning the entire portion, and chanting the whole thing myself, even though I can’t sing for crap. But I did it. I also led the prayers for the Torah service, and the beginning of musaf (I’d been practicing since I was like, eight; I was the weird kid who liked to go to services), and the mourner’s kaddish. Also, bentschen after the meal. I felt so good that day. I was walking on a cloud.

My grandmother helped me make my own tallis, and later I was married under it, and then my son was wrapped in it for his bris.

My Uncle Jonas, my mother’s brother (who she still holds some childhood grudges against) gave me an Atari 2600 for a gift, apparently after being specifically told not to, and they had a fight about it in the rabbi’s office, but that was the only really dark cloud.

The father of one of my best friends was a Kohen, and so he was called for the first aliyah, because no one in my family is a Kohan or Levite, and my friend went up and said the blessing with him, because she became bat mitzvah a few months earlier.

I guess it all sounds pretty ordinary typed up, but it was the best day of my life up until that point, and is still one of my best memories.

My aunt and uncle took in a few foster children after their youngest went to college, and ended up adopting one of them, who converted to Judaism. When she was 16, she had a bat mitzvah service. My aunt was raised in a fairly observant family, although I wouldn’t call them Orthodox (her mother didn’t wear a sheitl, and they would shake hands with people of the opposite sex), and my aunt wore jeans, and all, but she never wore a tallis, or was called to Torah. For her new youngest daughter’s bat mitzvah, she decided finally to do this, and so she had one of the aliyot at her daughter’s bat mitzvah, wearing a tallis for the first time.

Urbanredneck:

My oldest son had a classmate who was a twin, and the classmate’s twin brother was severely developmentally disabled. At the classmate’s Bar Mitzvah party, the family and class made sure that the disabled twin was included in all the celebrations. I was very moved by how beautifully the kids all behaved with him.

That said, in “ceremonial” terms, a person who is mentally impaired to a significant degree wouldn’t lead the prayer services or read from the Torah in public, because they are not obligated to perform Mitzvos as those with full mental capacity are. In Orthodox practice, the one leading the service and/or reading from the Torah is fulfilling the congregants’ obligations for them, and only one who is himself (or herself) obligated can fulfill an obligation on another’s behalf.

True. In my examples, the kid with dyslexia was fully capable of fulfilling mitvot, he just needed some adjustment in the service.

I really don’t know about the kid with Down Syndrome, but his father was the rabbi, and he was very talkative, so I think he had the mental capacity to do mitzvot. Personally, I’m not sure what rabbinical law says about people who are capable of fulfilling some mitzvot, but not others, except that such cases exist, and not being able to do one mitzvah does not release you from all of them-- someone who is diabetic and cannot fast on Yom Kippur is not released from observing mourning periods, saying the kaddish, or keeping kosher for Passover, for example. So someone who is capable of donning a tallis and saying the blessing, AND clearly understands that he is to begin doing so because he has reached the age of 13, should do so, I think, even if he is not capable of leading prayers. And in the case of this particular young man, who I talked to briefly (and given that I have some knowledge of Down Syndrome) it is certainly possible that by the time he is 20, or so, he may be capable of doing more.

I also once attended a bat mitzvah of a young man with Asperger’s syndrome. He did a fantastic job, and you would not have any idea he had any problem from watching him, other than his slightly odd speech cadence during his drash. It happened that I knew his preparation began a long time earlier than most kids’ begins, and he had more help with his drash than most kids get, but it was still his thoughts (I knew him pretty well)-- he just needed more help getting them on paper. I know that he is very observant in his personal life (he’s in his mid-20s now), and goes to services on a regular basis.

Mine was in Montreal in early April. There was blizzard the day before, so none of my out-of-town guests could make it. As a result, the reception hall was half empty and we had tons of food left over.

You may find these articles of interest:

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Life_Events/BarBat_Mitzvah/Practical_Aspects/Planning_Guide/Special_Needs.shtml

http://judaism.about.com/od/birthtomarriag1/f/bmitzvah_reqs.htm

I had a kid in my religious school class whose mother couldn’t afford to throw a huge party like the other kids in class, and so he didn’t “have” a bar mitzvah, he thought. He was kind of upset about it, until I explained to him that you don’t really “have” a bar mitzvah, you become bar mitzvah. Then I taught him to say the blessings over the Torah in about 20 minutes (and at any rate, our synagogue keeps a written copy in Hebrew and transliteration on the bimah). He came to services that next Saturday, and I didn’t tell him, but I spread the word around that it was his first time being called to Torah, and passed around candy (throwing candy at a simcha, like someone’s first aliyah, or an aufruf* is a tradition). After he recited the blessing, people started singing “Mazel Tov,” and we threw the candy. Then the rabbi said the blessing for a bar mitzvah over him, presented him with a chumash (something the synagogue always does for bar mitzvah kids), and he sat down. (Usually the person who just said an aliyah stays next to the gabbai for the next aliyah as a sort of back-up, and I did that for him.) After the service, we had a cake with “Mazel Tov!” on it (something else he wasn’t expecting).

We always have a convert or two a year at shul, and they usually have low-key celebrations of their first aliyah like this. They usually read the maftir, occasionally give a short drash, we sing “Mazel Tov,” and then they usually have a cake or something for after kiddush.
*When a married couple, or just the man, depending on the congregation, is called to Torah the Shabbes before the wedding, and then there is a special blessing said over them.

As I grew up, my parents never mentioned god or religion. We didn’t even own a bible, which became embarrasing when I got a school assignment involving the bible. For some reason when I was about 9 my parents sent me to Sunday school for a year. I went; it was a history of the Jewish people (“When the Jewish People was [sic] Young”). Then the fall I was going on 12, they suddenly discovered that if they wanted me bar mitzvah, they would have to send me to Hebrew school, where I learned to chant the relevant prayers and also the portion of my Haftorah. I still don’t know what any of it meant. The teacher denounced the kids who never came back after their bar mitzvah. For some reason, I vowed to myself I wouldn’t be one of them. So on Jan. 28, 1950, 6 days after my 13th birthday, I did my aliyah, said the prayers, read my portion and sat down again.

After there was a big party at our house and all the relatives came (I think they were the real reason my parents wanted it) collected a fair bit of loot (the typical gift was $10, which was a significant amount 64 years ago) and I was able to buy our first TV, for about $130, a ten inch B&W in a wooden console.

Come Tuesday, I skipped the Hebrew class. Well, I was entitled to cut one class, wasn’t I? Come Thursday, I skipped a second. By the following Tuesday, it dawned on me that I wasn’t going to go back, ever. And didn’t. I was a thorough non-believer. Not exactly an atheist because I had never given religion any though. Now that I have given it some thought, I realize I am an agnostic by reason and an atheist by belief.

Despite all of that, I have to admit I enjoyed the whole affair. But I was never tempted to put my own children through it. Mainly because my wife and I lived 500 miles or more away from all our relatives.