'e7 tei elianging tie Tgifig One PAnwliali at ac6inte RABBI JACK REIMER Special to the Jewish News Formerly The CUSTOM INVITATIONS I PHOTO ALBUMS I GRAPHIC DESIGN Leaf The Loose A Tea & bake house Premium Loose Leaf Tea • Gourmet Cocoa Ey Coffee Soups, Salads 8, Sandwiches baked Goods 8, Desserts Tea Ware, Gifts & Accessories Afternoon Tea Private Parties Available 172 N. Old Woodward Ave 3/24 2005 66 2+8-283-0260 • www.tkelooseleaf.com , 948240 ( wish this book had been around when my children around were becoming bar and bat mitzvah. If you know a family that will soon approach this event, run, don't walk, to get them a copy. They will bless you for it. On the one hand, bar and bat mitz- vah are widely observed. There was even a story in the Wall Street Journal a while ago about how non-Jewish kids pestering their parents that they want one, too, since they are envious of their Jewish friends who get to have such big parties. But on the other hand, children and parents are bewildered and con- fused over how to make these events meaningful. Children and adults wake up the next morning, after the out-of-town relatives have left, and before the mountain of waiting thank-you notes has to be attacked, and they ask themselves: What was this event which took over our lives for the last six months or more really all about? Was the party that we threw only a way of reciprocating for the ones that our kids were invited to? Were the adults whom we invited really there only for business reasons or for social ones? Was this Haftorah that our kids broke their teeth learning how to chant for so many weeks connected in any way to the world in which we live? And what message did we send our kids about our values by holding such a lavish bash? Danny Siegel's Bar and Bat Mitzvah Book: A Practical Guide for Changing the World Through Your Simcha is filled on every page with wise and helpful suggestions on how to avoid the let- down that the child and the family so often feel after such a simchah. First of all, it provides the child and the family with a whole different per- spective on what this event means. And then it provides the family with a plethora of ideas on how to make this turning point in the life of the child and in the life of the family. Siegel provides a definition of what it means to become a bar or bat mitz- vah that sets the service and the party into a good perspective. He says that in some cultures, the stages of life are counted as infant, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, adult, mid-life, empty nester, retiree, etc. In Jewish thought the stages of life are: infancy, childhood and then Mitzvah Manhood or Womanhood. The whole point of the day is to under- stand and accept the status of one who is now capable and obligated to do good deeds. If bar/bat mitzvah families accept this perspective, then everything else begins to fall into place. What you say on the invitation, whether you buy your kippot from Mayan women in Guatemala who do good work and who live in utter poverty and desper- ately need the work, what the child says in his talk, what kind of gifts go into the goody bags that you give your guests, who you honor and how you honor them and what happens with the leftover food after the party — all flow directly from this under- standing of what the event is really all about. Here is one example of what Siegel proposes families do with a bit of imagination and good will: Everyone has a challah at the din- ner, right? Technically, you don't need a challah except at the Shabbat or the holiday meal but, for some reason, almost everyone has a big challah at the banquet table. And usually we call upon Uncle Herman, who is still sober this early in the evening, and who gave a pretty good gift and therefore deserves an honor, and who is one of the few in the family whom we can trust to do it right, to recite the Motzi. But what more can we do with this ritual? Level one: At most parties the cater- er takes the challah away the moment Uncle Herman recites the blessing. It disappears through the swinging doors that lead into the kitchen, and it comes out some time later, neatly sliced and ready to serve. At some parties that I have been to, the family does it differently. They all