a gu ide to s imc ha hs

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Raising The Bar

Young bar
mitzvah
guests can
behave
themselves
and still
have a
good time.

Sharon Estroff

Special to celebrate!

a

h, the thrill and abandon of early
adolescence. Goofing off and
g ossiping; smacking gum and
blowing bubbles; text messaging
buddies via state-of-the-art cell phones.
And if you're especially lucky, the rabbi won't
shoot you a dirty look when your behavior inter-
feres with the bar mitzvah boy's Torah portion.
Our sages taught that a parent is responsible
for the actions of a child until that child reaches
the age of 13 years and one day, at which time
he's ripe and ready to assume full responsibil-
ity for all of his deeds. Perhaps our sages should
have specified that all deeds include stuffing up
synagogue toilets with rolls of toilet paper, downing
the remains of alcoholic beverages at simcha cel-
ebrations, running wild in hotel parking lots, having
elevator races, destroying someone else's furniture
and, gasp, performing sexually precocious acts
in bathrooms with other newly-pubescent Jewish
"adults."
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not suggesting
that all Jewish kids run around like wild banshees
during their friends' b'nai mitzvah. But the reality
is that 13-year-olds are not known for their stellar
judgment calls; or for their ability to fend off peer
pressure.
This, in combination with the sheer nature of the
modern American bar mitzvah celebration (includ-

ing tons of teens, distracted adults, free-flowing
alcohol, loud music and exciting venues), can
leave even typically well-behaved kids engaged
in less than pious activity — the ripples of which
emanate further than the offending parties could
begin to imagine.
Unruly behavior at b'nai mitzvah impacts
synagogue congregants who are disturbed during
prayer, and rabbis who are forced to add policing
to their list of Shabbat duties. It hurts the family
of the bar or bat mitzvah who see the day they've
been awaiting since the bris or baby naming irre-
versibly tarnished.
It's disconcerting to the bar mitzvah himself who
— watching from the bimah as his friends fool
around — is forced to balance his entry into Jewish
adulthood with middle school rules of cool.
Perhaps the most unsettling ripples of these
young guests' misconduct however, are those that
travel beyond the scope of our personal celebra-
tions:
The shock waves felt by gentile guests who wit-
ness Jewish children audaciously misbehaving at
supposedly sacred events; the emerging hesita-
tion among some hotels to reach out to the bar
mitzvah "industry" for fear of property damage and
disturbance of guests; and that most ominous-

Raising The Bar on page 68

celebrate 2007

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