Mazel Tov!
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History of Bar Mitzvah (continued)
In the 17th century among the German Jews in Worms, the lad was dressed in new clothes bought especially for this occasion. On the Sabbath of his bar mitzvah, he chanted the entire Torah portion. If he happened to have a pleasant voice, he also recited all the prayers before the congregation. Some lads who were not so well versed in Hebrew led only one of the services, either the evening prayers (Maariv), the morning prayers (Shacharit), or the additional Sabbath prayers (Musaf). There were boys who were not able to recite even the week's Torah portion, but every bar mitzvah boy was called up to [make the blessings on] the reading of the Torah and vowed to give a pound of wax for candles to illuminate the synagogue.
The bar mitzvah feast was served in the afternoon, as the third meal of the Sabbath. An hour before Mincha (the afternoon prayers), the bar mitzvah lad, dressed in his new clothes, went to the homes of the guests to invite them to the third meal. At the meal, the lad delivered a drasha on the customs of bar mitzvah and acted as the leader in reciting the grace after the meal (birkat hamazon).
Modern-Day Bar Mitzvah Celebrations
There is, in modern times, no uniformity in the bar mitzvah celebration. The bar mitzvah may read the entire Torah portion, the maftir (final portion), the haftarah, or some combination of these, and may deliver a drasha, but he would definitely have an aliyah. There is also a divergence in the custom regarding the tallit, or prayer shawl. In some communities, a boy donned a tallit on the Sabbath of his bar mitzvah, in others, he did not put it on until he was married. The Ashkenazic Jews always present gifts to the boy in honor of his bar mitzvah.
In America, the bar mitzvah celebration plays an important role in Jewish life and is often accompanied by a fancy party and gifts. Rather than having the father teach the son, as was traditional, most children prepare in religious school or with the help of a private tutor.
Sephardic Customs
Unlike the Ashkenazim, the Sephardim do not restrict the rights of the minor. The Sephardim still adhere to the talmudic law, which allowed a minor to put on tefillin and to be called up to the reading of the Torah, and they celebrate bar mitzvah in their own distinctive way.
Primarily, the Sephardim celebrate the first laying of tefillin, which takes place exactly a year before attaining majority. On that day, the parents hold a sumptuous feast for all their relatives and friends, and the boy, if capable, delivers a drasha on a topic pertaining to the occasion. Only the rich hold a second celebration a year later, when the boy reaches his majority.
Among the Jews of Morocco, too, the main emphasis in the bar mitzvah celebration is placed upon the first laying of tefillin. This takes place on the Thursday after the 12th birthday. The feast is held at the home of the parents on the preceding day, Wednesday. On Thursday, the morning services are held in the boy's home, where all the worshippers gather and take part in the ceremony. The rabbi of the community binds the phylactery upon his head. A choir accompanies the ceremony with a hymn. The boy is then called up to the reading of the Torah as the third participant after the Kohen and the Levite (on Thursday and Monday only a small portion of the Torah is read, for which only three are called).
At the end of the services the boy delivers his discourse. Then he proceeds with his tefillin bag among the men and the women present, and everyone throws silver coins into the bag. The boy presents this gift money to the teacher. The guests partake of a breakfast and, in the evening, they again gather in the house. On the following Sabbath, the boy is called up to the reading of the haftarah. This is accompanied by a piyyut, a liturgical poem, composed for this occasion.
History of Bat Mitzvah
The bat mitzvah ceremony is of relatively recent vintage, with the first American observance in 1922.
By Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow and Phyllis Ocean Berman
The first American bat mitzvah in 1922 initiated a ceremony that continues its development even today. Whereas the bat mitzvah in the liberal movements is now, in most synagogues, identical to the bar mitzvah. In traditional settings, where communal and religious values still dictate that women not take an active role in religious services, women are struggling with how to formulate a religiously acceptable, public ceremony to mark a girl's coming of age. One venue for the bat mitzvah not mentioned below is in a women's prayer service. Excerpted with permission from A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC).
For larger and larger parts of the Jewish people, girls at 12 or 13 years of age are undertaking exactly the same ceremony as boys. For American Jews, this process famously began in 1922 when Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionism, arranged for his daughter Judith to celebrate becoming a bat mitzvah at a public synagogue ceremony.
But in fact her ceremony did not involve a full aliyah to the Torah [going up to the Torah and reciting blessings over its reading], and was thus a much-diminished version of what boys did. It bore considerable resemblance to a way of celebrating this passage in the synagogue that some girls in Italy and France had begun even earlier, and Rabbi Kaplan may have used for his daughter's rite what he had heard or seen of an Italian ceremony.
Elsewhere, too, in Jewish life, girls entering adulthood had begun to take part in a public ceremony. Late in the 19th century, Joseph Hayyim Eliyahu ben Moshe of Baghdad, Ben Ish Hai. wrote (as translated by Howard Tzvi Adelman):
"And also the daughter on the day that she enters the obligation of the commandments, even though they don't usually make for her a seudah [celebratory meal], nevertheless that day will be one of happiness. She should wear Sabbath clothing and if she is able to do so she should wear new clothing and bless the Shehecheyanu prayer [for the One 'Who gives us life, lifts us up, and carries us to this moment'] and be ready for her entry to the yoke of the commandments. There are those who are accustomed to make her birthday every year into a holiday. It is a good sign, and this we do in our house."
Another bat mitzvah ceremony, in the synagogue, was celebrated in Lwow in 1902 by Rabbi Dr. Yehezkel Caro, "rabbi for the enlightened Jews."
What gave long-term importance to Judith Kaplan's moment was that American culture supported transfoming this hesitant beginning into wholehearted change. By the end of the 20th century, in almost all non-Orthodox congregations girls were celebrating their coming-of-age as b'not mitzvah through much the same ceremonies their brothers experienced.
Indeed, by the end of the century, many Orthodox synagogues were doing the same kind of limited ceremony short of a full aliyah that Rabbi Kaplan had originally arranged for his daughter. And even among haredi ("ultra-Orthodox") communities, some girls' schools were holding a special breakfast for the class of 12-year-olds, to which mothers were invited. In some American haredi communities, each girl signs up for a Sunday near her birthday on which to have a lunch and speak a d'var Torah [talk on her Torah portion]. Some have proposed a party where the Bat Mitzvah might separate challah [set aside a portion of the dough in remembrance of for the first time, or do another mitzva particular to women. Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic communities celebrate a girl's becoming Bat Mitzvah with the girl choosing a teaching of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe to learn and discuss at a gathering of her friends and family.
Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow and Phyllis Ocean Berman are leaders of the Jewish renewal movement. Waskow directs the Shalom Center and is the author of numerous books, including Godwrestling, Godwrestling--Round 2, Seasons of Our Joy,The Bush is Burning, and These Holy Sparks. Berman directs Elat Chayyim's Summer Program and is coauthor of Tales of Tikkun.
Excerpted from "Joining in the Mitzvot" from A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven by Arthur Ocean Waskow and Phyllis Ocean Berman.
Copyright (c) 2002 by Arthur Ocean Waskow and Phyllis Ocean Berman. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.
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