metro » j ews in the digita l a ge
Tech Tools
For The Bar &
Bat Mitzvah
S
crolling through my Facebook feed
lessons, blessings and full readings for stu-
a few weeks ago, I noticed that the
dents. In many cases, it is the family unaf-
young woman whose bat mitzvah
filiated with a congregation who is looking
I officiated just weeks after being ordained
to use technology for training, and there are
as a rabbi a dozen years ago had
no shortage of options.
walked down the aisle as a bride.
However, with busy extracur-
That, combined with the realization
ricular schedules for the teens and
my oldest child will become a bar
hectic work responsibilities for
mitzvah early next year, caused me
parents, it is often easier for teens
to feel nostalgic and also to consider
to be trained at home in front of
how the bar and bat mitzvah train-
a screen.
ing process has changed over the
All of these new options mean
years.
congregations need to keep track
While the bar mitzvah ceremony Rabbi Jason
of where and how their teens are
Miller
is a relatively new institution in
being trained. They also have to
Judaism, it hasn’t changed much
manage the entire process of train-
in terms of what the bar mitzvah or bat
ing and meeting the benchmarks in place
mitzvah actually does in the synagogue ser- for the b’nai mitzvah program.
vice. Of course, the ceremony differs from
One rabbi in Canada is bringing the
synagogue to synagogue, and what a girl is
bar mitzvah management process into
allowed to do for her bat mitzvah ceremony the Digital Age. Vancouver Rabbi Dan
varies in Orthodox congregations and in
Moskovitz has created a groundbreaking
some Conservative congregations.
b’nai mitzvah manage-
What has certainly changed in recent
ment platform to make
years is how these Jewish teens are trained
the process much easier
for their coming-of-age ceremony and how
for congregations using
the synagogues handle the process.
distance tutoring in a
During my final year of rabbinical school,
more personable way.
I was serving a fledgling synagogue com-
He is the rabbi of a large
munity in northern Virginia while attending
congregation; but as
classes in New York City and living in New
a hobby, he develops
Rabbi Dan
Jersey. The few b’nai mitzvah students I had
software
programs to
Moskovitz
to train that year met with me mostly over a
help manage synagogue
speaker phone. When I had the opportunity
operations and educa-
to meet these teens in person during one
tion programs. He recently released Mitzvah
of my weekend visits to the congregation, I
Tools 2.0.
realized how much of the important interac-
MITZVAH TOOLS
tion I was missing because I couldn’t see
their faces during our tutoring sessions. The Many congregations across North America
already hold subscriptions to the original
technology to tutor them virtually through
version of Mitzvah Tools, which is the first
video conferencing was not yet available.
cloud-based management system for b’nai
NEW TECH OPTIONS
mitzvah. Over the years, congregations of
Today, many b’nai mitzvah tutors are train-
all sizes have relied on this desktop app
ing Jewish teens who live hundreds or even
to maintain recordings of Torah readings,
thousands of miles away thanks to the
schedule appointments with students, track
advent of such video conferencing apps as
tutoring notes, participation honors and
Skype, Google Hangouts, Zoom and Apple
handle assignments. Thirteen years later,
FaceTime. Even beyond these communica-
Moskovitz has teamed up with a cantor to
tion apps, other technological tools allow
augment the original software.
for a more interactive bar mitzvah training
The new version of Mitzvah Tools is
experience.
completely cloud-based and mobile friendly.
Many online tutors use the Trope Trainer It promises to transform the bar and bat
application, a computer software that has
mitzvah educational process for congrega-
22 July 28 • 2016
Mitzvah Tools
tions, making critical information and
valuable resources easily accessible to tutors,
clergy, students and parents. Rabbis, can-
tors and bar mitzvah tutors can use the
Mitzvah Tools app to make multimedia-rich
assignments and tasks for students, main-
tain service notes, schedule appointments,
initiate video chats for remote learning and
maintain their congregation’s own limitless
online resource bank of audio, video and
text files accessible to each student at any
time.
“The expectations placed upon the b’nai
mitzvah in the training process have not
changed much in several generations, but
the students, educators and parents have
changed dramatically,” Moskovitz explains.
“Students now have more demands on their
time. Mitzvah Tools allows students to study
wherever and whenever they can with all
of their materials right on their phones,
including initiating a Skype/FaceTime ses-
sion with a tutor with just a click of a but-
ton.”
For parents who are managing multiple
calendars and projects, Mitzvah Tools helps
them organize. The app syncs appoint-
ment calendars, online scheduling, instant
threaded messaging with the education
team and an online resource bank that has
every kernel of information about the b’nai
mitzvah process.
Moskovitz points out that with today’s
prevalence of intermarriage in the Jewish
community, many parents of Jewish teens
did not experience the bar or bat mitzvah
training process in their youth so an appli-
cation like Mitzvah Tools is helpful in that
regard as well.
For educators, Mitzvah Tools provides
one place for notes, files, assignments, cal-
endar, honors during the service and impor-
tant contact information. In a previous gen-
eration, many tutors kept a binder, which
was never seen by rabbis or cantors. Now,
however, everyone can be on the same page.
In multi-clergy/multi-tutor environments,
this is an extremely helpful program.
“Until Mitzvah Tools came along, in order
to keep track of the more than 100 students
under my supervision or tutoring, I had
to carry around a four-inch ring binder, in
which each child had their own pages,” said
Cantor Mark Britowich of Temple Judea in
California. “With Mitzvah Tools, I manage
these students easily. Everything I need to
know is visible on whatever device I use,
and I maintain each child’s file so that
everyone on our staff can see exactly what
the student is working on.”
Mitzvah Tools is the perfect solution for
distance learning. With an online project
management system, remote video chat and
threaded discussions between students and
educator, the tutoring room in now in the
cloud. In small, rural communities in which
it is challenging to find bar mitzvah tutors,
an online tutor can be engaged and, through
Mitzvah Tools, the rabbi or other congrega-
tional designate can monitor the student’s
progress from the online dashboard and
join in the process every step of the way.
“Mitzvah Tools has been such a huge help
for our son and his bar mitzvah studies,”
said Sharon Goldberg of Florida. “Having all
of his recordings online and being able to
schedule or reschedule his tutoring sessions
from my phone makes it so much easier to
stay on top of this whole process.”
Young Jewish teens will continue to cele-
brate their b’nai mitzvah ceremonies as their
grandparents did before them, but the prep-
aration process has changed, thanks to new
technology. Online training websites and
virtual tutors will become the norm for how
many teens prepare for their milestone event
in the Jewish lifecycle. New applications like
Mitzvah Tools will help ensure the process is
organized and managed appropriately.
*
Rabbi Jason Miller is an educator, entrepreneur
and blogger. He is president of Access Computer
Technology in West Bloomfield. Follow him on Twitter
at @RabbiJason.