Popular books revive memories of b’nai mitzvah

What do you remember most about your bar or bat mitzvah?

Was it the service itself, or the party that followed?

Is the memory focused on your performance anxiety or the notion of your becoming an adult, at least in the eyes of Jewish law, at a time when you were just entering adolescence?

How is it that perhaps our first public performance comes at such a tender, awkward and self-conscious age?

My thoughts turned to the b'nai mitzvah experience, including my own all those years ago, after having just read a compelling book on the subject and learning about another just published.

Indeed, with the national media reporting on the phenomenon of non-Jewish youngsters demanding a bar- or bat mitzvah-like party for themselves after attending their Jewish friends' extravaganzas, one gets the sense that a rite of passage for youngsters may be Judaism's next contribution to American culture.

It's understandable. Though the ritual is nowhere to be found in the Torah and was a little-celebrated event until the mid-20th century, it has become increasingly accepted by all Jewish denominations as a communal connection between a young person and the Jewish people, less a spiritual experience for most than a moment to celebrate one's awareness of accepting the responsibility of being a Jew.

For some that means taking on the mitzvah in a serious way, not merely being called to the Torah and counted in the minyan.

For others it means taking on a moral conscience through acts of charity and kindness, perhaps a fund-raising drive for a worthy cause or visiting residents of a senior citizens home.

While one may argue that the deeper meaning of becoming a Jewish adult may be lost on youngsters at the age of 12 (for girls) or 13 (for boys), Mark Oppenheimer, author of "Thirteen And A Day," suggests that this remains a sensible age for children to begin adulthood.

Oppenheimer, a 31-year-old journalist with a Ph.D. in religious history from Yale (who never had a bar mitzvah himself), takes a compassionate but serious look at a ritual too often defined only by its excesses.

He traveled the United States for two years and reports on how bar- and bat mitzvahs are celebrated, from some of the elaborate party-focused affairs in the New York area, to small-town events in the South, to adult converts who choose to mark the occasion, to a Lubavitch bar mitzvah in Alaska.

Exploring the intersection of Jewish and American culture in a lighter way is "Bar Mitzvah Disco," a collection of 3,000 b'nai mitzvah photos from the 1970s and '80s.

Roger Bennett says that he and co-authors Nick Kroll and Jules Shell sought to tell the story of their generation, "who we are and how we got to be that way," through the prism of the happiest year of their lives, when going to a bar- or bat mitzvah was a weekly experience.

The book, which includes some 20 essays by the likes of novelist Jonathan Safran Foer and comedian Sarah Silverman, has the ideal folks to write the foreword: the Village People, whose pop song "YMCA" surely got heavier play at these affairs than "Hava Negillah."

"Our book is, and isn't, about bar and bat mitzvahs," says Bennett. "It's as much about the adolescent experience as it is about the ritual itself."

Bennett, whose day job is vice president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, said the '70s and '80s marked a time when non-Jews more commonly participated in b'nai mitzvah events, which became a universally respected and adored ritual. The unique challenge for Bennett's generation, in their 30s, is deciding how Jewish to be in an age when "we can be whoever we want to be."

Clearly, the bar- and bat mitzvah ritual takes on different meaning for each successive generation.

But its ultimate power may come from its public nature, especially at a time and in a society when, as Bennett notes, our identities are self-defined and no longer imposed.

By coming forward in the synagogue before family and community to accept responsibility, young people start to realize they are part of a long and proud tradition, one we hope they will embrace and cherish throughout their lives.

It's our job, then, to convince them that their serious inquiry into what it means to be a Jew should begin, and not end, on that special day.




The writer is editor and publisher of New York Jewish Week.