3 min read
ByYoni Birnbaum, Yoni Birnbaum
Do we focus too much on a one-off performance, rather than the lasting lessons of the day asks Rabbi Yoni Birnbaum?
December 24, 2018 11:50I fear we may have forgotten the whole point of making a barmitzvah.
Over the past month, I had the privilege of participating in barmitzvah ceremonies for two boys with autism. During the year leading up to their respective simchas, I had detailed discussions with each of the families concerned regarding the barmitzvah itself and the possible forms it could take. I explained that my overriding priority was to ensure that it should be meaningful to the boys themselves, rather than focusing on “how much” they were actually able to do in shul.
In the event, one of the boys held a Sefer Torah as we sang Adon Olam with him at the conclusion of the service.
The other recited the words of the blessings on the Torah together with his father in a smaller, more intimate setting than the regular shul service. Both occasions were exceptionally moving and charged with emotion, for the families, myself and everyone else present.
For me, however, there was another important lesson of these special simchas —there are no formally proscribed ways of marking a bar or bat mitzvah. The moment a boy turns 13 and a girl turns 12, they have reached the age at which they can perform mitzvot. We commemorate and celebrate that moment in a variety of different ways. But those methods of commemoration should be kept separate, and secondary, from the key consideration of what this moment represents. It marks the transition from childhood to adulthood, and the age when the observance of Jewish law becomes a personal responsibility and privilege for the individual concerned.
Sadly, however, I think we fail to remind ourselves often enough of this distinction. Bar and batmitzvah celebrations are a central feature of Jewish life today and families spend endless hours planning the perfect simcha. Yet, that process often leads to an overriding focus on the maximum that can be performed by the young person concerned, losing sight of the real point of these occasions.
And paradoxically, that focus on how the moment can be marked in the most impressive way possible often has the opposite effect in terms of engendering any sort of lifelong commitment to ongoing mitzvah observance.
This is because the time spent preparing for their one-off performance leaves precious little time for exploration with the young person regarding what the responsibility of becoming a Jewish adult actually involves. It is true that many children engage in shul, school or cheder programmes geared towards this during the year of their bar or bat mitzvah. But think what more could be achieved if this became the primary, rather than the secondary experience of the bar and bat mitzvah year.
Think what could be achieved if the family as a whole studied and practiced together some key aspect of the mitzvot such as keeping kosher or observing Shabbat.
Think about the lasting impact it would have if they marked the occasion with a new commitment towards keeping those mitzvot properly together on an ongoing basis.
And think of the inspirational message we would send to our young people if on the day they reached the age of Jewish maturity, they would give a presentation to the community surrounding a particular mitzvah, or set of mitzvot, they had spent time learning about and would now undertake to keep. They would become real ‘bnei mitzvah’ in every sense of the word, rather than bnei mitzvah for the day or weekend.
We all know the very old joke about the rabbis, the mice and the mass bar mitzvah. Two rabbis are despairing of the mice problem in their shul, until the third rabbi provides the solution: ‘“ I went down to the basement, gathered all the mice together and performed a mass bar-mitzvah. And we haven’t seen any of them since…”
The best jokes work because they have more than a grain of truth in them. So, if we take seriously the problem of these celebrations serving as a one-off moment in the journey of a Jewish family, we need to re-think our entire approach to the whole affair.
Working with those two very special young men and their families in the run up to their becoming bnei mitzvah reminded me that a bar or batmitzvah isn’t about the day at all. It is about the first day of Jewish adulthood and the beginning of a life of mitzvot.
Celebrate the day by all means. Just don’t make it the last.
Yoni Birnbaum is the rabbi of Hadley Wood Synagogue
