blogs/brentspodek

The American bar mitzvah can be a somewhat confusing institution.

It's not just that the parties are too extravagant, though sometimes they are.

It's the religious ceremony itself that can be somewhat peculiar - only about 12% of American Jews attend religious services once a month, yet we mark coming of age with a religious service. Why do we mark becoming a Jewish adult with a practice in which so few actual Jewish adults invest?

If we think the marker of Jewish adulthood is participation in religious services, why do so few adults do it? Alternately, if we don't really think that participation in religious services is the marker of religious adulthood, why do we celebrate children becoming adults in that way?

As sixteen year old Dan Lazewatsky puts it in Thirteen and A Day, becoming bar mitzvah meant "I had a responsibility to go to services and try to get something from them. Now I could feel truly guilty for sneaking out of Rosh Hashonah services to sit in the hall and play cards."

Put another way, can we articulate a vision of Jewish adulthood which inspires us - adults and children alike - and then celebrate inaugurating our children into that?

I recognize that these are hard questions - there is comfort in familiar ritual. Ritual can give shape to and even elevate emotions.

But ritual alone is empty ritual. It's what's left when the spirit is dead. Our Judaism is a living Judaism, vibrant and dynamic, not a re-enactment of what we imagine our grandparents did.

I speak to lots of adults who say, in essence, "I'm Jewish, but I haven't been in a synagogue since my bar mitzvah, which was a joke." I hope that 20 years from now, when our children are talking to a rabbi, they can report something different.

I dont know where these conversations will lead, but if you are interested in exploring these issues and discussing what we can build here at BHA, please mark your calendar for services and a conversation on April 2 and consider signing up for the upcoming class on the Past and Future of the American Bar Mitzvah.