ceet eL ra to B'nai Mitzvah Come Of Age That moment awareness of accepting hat do you remember the responsibility of most about your bar being a Jew. or bat mitzvah? For some, that means Was it the service itself, or the taking on the mitzvot in a party that followed? Is the memo- serious way — not just ry focused on your performance being called to the Torah anxiety or the notion of your and counted in the min- becoming an adult, at least in the yan — and for others it eyes of Jewish law, at a time when means taking on a moral you were just entering adoles- conscience through acts Gary Rosenblatt cence? of charity and kindness, Special to the How is it that perhaps our perhaps a fundraising Jewish News most public performance comes drive for a worthy cause at such a tender, awkward and or visiting residents of a self-conscious age? My thoughts turned to the b'nai mitzvah senior citizens home. While one may argue that the deeper experience, including my own all those meaning of becoming a Jewish adult may years ago, after having read a compelling be lost on youngsters at the age of 12 (for book on the subject and learning about girls) or 13 (for boys), Mark Oppenheimer, another just published. Indeed, with the national media reporting on the phenome- in Thirteen and a Day (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a thoughtful account of the wide non of non-Jewish youngsters demanding variety of ways the ritual is marked in a b'nai mitzvah-like party for themselves America today, suggests that "13 remains a after attending their Jewish friend& sensible age for children to begin the beginnings of their adulthood." "Character is a muscle he writes. "It needs to be flexed in childhood but the real training comes at the age when you're more to blame for your choices than your parents are. In that light, the bar and bat mitzvah come at the right time. The medievals knew what they were doing." \,``.° Oppenheimer, a 31-year-old journalist z with a doctorate in religious history from Yale (who never had a bar mitzvah him- self), takes a compassionate but serious \1/4, 71 look at a ritual too often defined only by its excesses. He traveled the nation for two years and reports on how bar and bat mitzvahs are celebrated, from some of the Vkl.1\A! lekN§NN elaborate party-focused affairs in the met- NANNYV‘Ns.,:t:V1:‘Vc\N: C ropolitan areas, to small-town events in the South, to adult converts who choose to mark the occasion, to a Lubavitch bar mitzvah in Anchorage, Alaska. Along the way, he says, he was humbled extravaganzas, one gets the sense that a by the experience. "I started off arrogant, rite of passage for youngsters may be Mallory Tyner of West Bloomfield thinking I knew what I would find',' he told Judaism's next contribution to American reads from the Torah for her bat me, but soon changed his mind. He said culture. mitzvah in October at Adat his biggest surprise was realizing how It's understandable. Though the ritual is Shalom Synagogue, Farmington much he came to like all the people he met. nowhere to be found in the Torah and was Hills. "Most were thoughtful and earnest:' he a little-celebrated event until the mid-20th said, adding that he came to appreciate century, it has become increasingly accept- that "Judaism is tremendously appealing ed by all Jewish denominations as a com- in a lot of ways." What most b'nai mitzvah munal connection between a young per- have in common, he found, is the lesson son - girls now as well as boys - and the that "they have reached a milestone they Jewish people; less a spiritual experience should be proud of for having reached?' for most than a moment to celebrate one's of taking responsibility. , -- / 4 , 2 58 CELEBRATE • 2006 JN W Exploring the intersection of Jewish and American culture in a lighter way is Bar Mitzvah Disco, a collection of 3,000 bar and bat mitzvah photos from the 1970s and '80s, due out last November. Roger Bennett says 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 Negilah." "Our book is, and isn't, about bar and bat mitzvahs:' Bennett said. "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 com- monly participated in b'nai mitzvah events, which became "a universally respected and adored ritual." The unique challenge for his generation, said Bennett, who is in his mid-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 suc- cessive generation, but its ultimate power may come from its public nature, especial- ly 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 for the mitzvot, young peo- ple 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. El Gary Rosenblatt is the editor and publisher of the Jewish Week of New York. This column originally appeared in the Jewish Week in September. He can be reached at Gary@jewishweek.org .