I begin by asking you to do something which may be a little painful, so bear
with me – think of all the money you’ve spent cumulatively on
your children’s B’nai Mitzvah, or will, God willing.
And so I ask you now the question, exactly how many years of tuition would that amount of money buy right now? That’s where the Pohl family is at, right now.
Put in that perspective, was it worth it?
I think most of us would say yes. Sure many of our B’nai Mitzvah receptions are excessive – I’m not so sure how much we’ve learned since Philip Roth’s descriptions in Goodbye Columbus.
But this much I also know – our feelings that day, the day of our child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah exceeded all of our anticipations.
I’m talking to the parents right now – did you ever feel more connected to your religion, more grateful to God, more proud of your child than you did on the day of the Bar or Bat Mitzvah?
I imagine there are many times when we feel proud of our children after Bar or Bat Mitzvah – at least I hope so.
But there’s something different and unique about the Bar or Bat Mitzvah.
We’re proud at their high school graduations, we’re proud when they get accepted to college. We’re proud at their various accomplishments as they move through teenage years and young adulthood.
But at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah the pride is unique because while almost everybody we know graduates high school, enters college, begins work, not everybody we know has a Bar or Bat Mitzvah unless you live in Borough Park or Israel.
Even bees know that!
A hungry bee meets a fellow bee who directs the hungry one to a Bar Mitzvah. The hungry bee eats his fill, then again meets his friend.
The second bee asks how it went, and hears that his friend ate plenty. The second bee then asks why the first bee is wearing a yarmulke.
The first bee replies, “It was a Bar Mitzvah. I didn’t want anyone to think I was a WASP.”
Everyone knows that a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is unique to the Jewish people. Or so we thought! Last January an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal – on the front page of the Wall Street Journal – that caused me to react with rage, embarrassment and accusations of untruth.
The article was sent to me and several other people in our congregation via e-mail by our past president, Larry Fishbein.
The title of the article is “You don’t have to be Jewish to want a Bar Mitzvah party.”
This article informs us that more and more frequently non-
Jewish friends of Jewish boys and girls are also demanding and receiving parties
celebrating their 13th birthday.
The old joke has really become true - in the Bar Mitzvah, it’s all Bar, and no Mitzvah.
It’s really not a surprise - just about every 13 year-old child would love to have a big, huge party in his or her honor.
Certainly Laura Jean Stargardt did. According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, Laura Jean Stargardt convinced her parents to throw a party that “looked like a Bat Mitzvah without the religion.”
They booked a country club in Dallas and a disk jockey, invited 125 friends,
and hired a professional dancer that Laura had seen at her friend’s Bat
Mitzvah party.
By the way, Laura and her family are Methodists.
Obviously, Laura went to many B’nai Mitzvah parties and she may have
even gone to some of the B’nai Mitzvah services because, according
to this article, she was one child who actually offered to learn Hebrew,
and thought the singing of the prayers was inspiring.
But in the end, either she or her parents or both, came to the conclusion
that “while we can’t and won’t do the service part of it,
we can do the party!”
I’m reminded of the parents who wanted their son’s Bar Mitzvah
to be a very special occasion, one, which would never be forgotten. A safari
Bar Mitzvah was being done too often, a neighbor's son had had his ceremony
at the Wailing Wall, and the South Pole was just too cold.
So the father of the boy arranged to rent the shuttle from NASA and take the Rabbi, family, and all their friends into space. The scientists had returned from MIR and it was not being used at present. The excursion created a lot of worldwide attention, and all the press was there to find out how it went.
The first person off the shuttle was the grandmother, and the reporters asked
her, "How was the service?"
Grandma answered, "OK".
"
How was the boy's speech?"
"
OK."
"
How was the food?"
"
OK."
"
Everything was just OK? You don't seem to have liked it? What was wrong?"
"
There was no atmosphere!"
Is it so difficult to create the right “atmosphere.” I mean, after
all, what exactly is so Jewish about our parties that prevents any other family
from imitating a similar 13th birthday celebration.
Take away five minutes of dancing the hora and the rest of the party is basically not much more than the latest and greatest of modern, secular pop culture.
Okay, there is a motzee and a “boray p’ree ha-gefen” thrown in for good measure.
But really, that and the hora and that’s about it.
So I read this article and I was aghast. So were many other people with whom I spoke after they read the article.
It was like, “Oh my God – is this the way we’ve succeeded in demonstrating to others what a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is really all about?
Don’t they understand that yes, the party is often very lavish,
excessive and overdone. But as ridiculous as it sounds, for most of us, that’s
not the part that really counts.
As wonderful as these receptions can sometimes be, it’s not that part of the Bar or Bat Mitzvah that captivates us and stays with us for the rest of our lives.
I imagine that as we adults look back on our own Bar or Bat Mitzvah experiences, it is the service, the prayers, the davening, the worship, that remain more strongly entrenched in our memories than any part of the reception.
I am a rabbi who has officiated, at this point in my career, at probably something like 750 B’nai Mitzvah ceremonies. I have encountered hundreds of families during this process, and I’ve shared the Bar or Bat Mitzvah experience with them.
I see, I know, I’m convinced of the power of the ceremony and how important it is.
Yes there aspects I would like to change, but for the most part, it is one of the great successes of the Conservative Movement and of our congregation.
I also think it’s one of the great successes of Judaism in the 20th and now 21st century. Religious people from other faiths think so as well. Let me share with you a few sentences describing a Bat Mitzvah ceremony which come from another article I read this past year. The title of the article is “New Rites of Passage – Finding and Celebrating Significant Life Moments.” The author is Kathy Callahan-Howell, and the article appears in Leadership Magazine, a forum for Christian clergy. Listen to how she praises a Bat Mitzvah ceremony:
“Nora and I slid into a pew in the ornately decorated Temple. Beautiful mosaics covered the front of the worship space. Nora’s friend Lilly awaited the beginning of her Bat Mitzvah service. Other friends sat close by, most of them, like us, unaccustomed to the special ceremony we awaited.
This ceremony is not a separate service organized to honor the participant. Instead, the 13-year old leads the regular worship of the day. As the service began, Lily read the Torah in Hebrew. The rhythmic words filling the temple. Between the readings her brothers, grandparents, and two cousins shared blessings called Aliyah.
Then Lily preached well, at least that’s what I would call it. The Jewish term is d’var Torah, explicating the passage of the day. Lily shared about Noah, his faith, and how her faith had deepened as she studied for this day. She explained that Noah had been spared because he was a righteous man among a culture of sin. She talked about the challenge of remaining righteous at school when most of the students cheated on their work. I couldn’t help but think her teachers must be smiling.
I found my eyes welling with tears, feeling pride in the work she had done to reach this day. She wasn’t even my daughter, yet I felt moved by the richness of the ceremony. The rest of the day was filled with more celebrating, a lunch at the temple, then a party later in the day.
What really captured my attention was the collaboration of all the facets of her life in affirming her. Her relatives stood and bragged unabashedly about this dear member of their family. Her friends honored her by their presence at the ceremony, much of which they probably didn’t even understand. Her teachers even attended. And while there, all heard Lily proclaim her owning of her faith, which had been deepened by her study in preparation for that day.
As we shared her joy, I reflected that our tradition has nothing to compare with the magnitude of this celebration. When do our young people ever have a platform from which to express their faith to their friends?”
That’s what a Bar or Bat Mitzvah really is all about. Our celebrations are excessive, because really there are no events which can fully contain a celebration worthy of what a Bar or Bat Mitzvah means.
So we tend to exceed. Our feelings overflow, so our celebrations are overdone, but much of the spiritual significance gets through as well. Of course most of what a 12 or 13 year-old will see, are just the celebrations.
That’s why they go home and ask their mom and dad if they can have something similar. And, as we learned from the Wall Street Journal article, sometimes the parents will agree.
Having a Bar or Bat Mitzvah reception without the accompanying study, practice, connection to Jewish religious and ritual life, is at best nothing more than a glorified birthday party and is at worst, a bastardization of our religion.
This is more than a glorified sweet-16 three years early. It really is an understanding that a 13 year-old is ready to begin making adult decisions, but not in a vacuum.
It means that we, the parents, have something truly worthwhile that not only must we give to our children, but it belongs to them whether we give it to them or not.
It really doesn’t come from us, it comes from God. It has a specific content and it reflects very carefully tested and proven values.
In a way, having non-Jewish Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, makes about as much sense, as having Jews for Jesus. It means taking something very special, very holy, in one case the Bar or Bat Mitvah, and in the other case Judaism itself, and saying that really what serves as the foundation for the experience isn’t necessary – you can have the experience without its corresponding root basis.
Having a Bar or Bat Mitzvah reception without the mitzvah component is really like saying well, we’ll celebrate certain forms of Judaism but the God that we will worship will not be a Jewish God.
Ladies and Gentlemen, tomorrow I will tell you and share with you the theological differences between Judaism and Christianity.
I will point out to you theologically, as best as I can in a sermon, the major difference between the God, Jews worship, and the god, Jews for Jesus worship.
And, because the God we worship is different, so is everything else about the Judaism, Jews observe different, from the religion observed by the so-called Jews for Judaism. They are really nothing more than Christians playing pretend Judaism.
I’m convinced that you know that Jesus is not part of Judaism and can never be. Tomorrow I’ll explain why, if you don’t already know why.
Today I’m going to tell you that the best way to combat the tactics of Jews for Judaism is not to give them the attention they desire by yelling and screaming and protesting about them.
Rather, it is making your own commitment to learning more about Judaism. It is taking what you know you felt at your child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah and building on that for yourself now.
It is learning and studying more about the Jewish faith as an adult.
You know how the Jews for Jesus succeed in convincing people of their beliefs. They study the Bible, and they learn its contents, carefully. Now, what they learn, the way they learn and how they apply what they learn is wrong from my point of view and from the Jewish point of view.
Sometimes when our young people, especially our young people who have not studied very much beyond Bar or Bat Mitzvah age, sometimes when they encounter Jews for Jesus they are embarrassed and they’re lost and they’re confused because they don’t know their own religion. They aren’t aware of truly Jewish values.
They haven’t learned them at home, they certainly don’t learn them in our society as a whole, and they haven’t been to synagogue in years. And I know that’s our fault at the shul as well as it is the fault of the parents who raise them.
And so we must train our own people, our own youngsters, our own teachers, our own students, to be more familiar with the Hebrew Bible from a Jewish point of view, not simply so that they can engage in some sort of defensive debate tactic if and when they encounter someone like a Jew for Jesus.
No, they won’t want to study for that reason. Rather, we must all continue to study and learn about Judaism because of what we feel when we go through the Bar or Bat Mitzvah experience, as a child, and as parents.
We know that it’s right.
We know how it makes us feel, we know its beauty, we know its power, we know
its impact, and we know it’s important not only for when our child happens
to be 13 years old – it’s been important ever since Abraham and
Sara decided to have Isaac, their first and only child together, with whom
they would share
everything they believed about how to live in this world created by the one
true God of the universe.
Study can work at any age. I know it from myself. I know it from you.
There are many of you in this congregation who have studied and learned Judaism. Most of the time you like it and you learn good things.
I wish we did more with adult education. I honestly believe the best way to shape the future of our children is to make sure they have educated parents.
We can never underestimate the impact parents have, positive and negative, upon our children.
How often do I hear from adults who are proud, as adults, to tell me not that they’ve studied so much, but that they had parents who were learned.
My father was a learned Jew.
My mother was an observant Jew and learned, despite the difficulties preventing Jewish women from learning back then.
Why do people tell me these things, especially when they themselves may not be so learned? They know a good model. They’re proud, and they realize the beautiful lessons and values found in the traditions of Judaism.
One of my favorite books, from which I’ve shared portions in the past, is My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen.
The saddest part of the book is that I don’t know that Rachel Naomi Remen is an observant Jew in any way. Yet she is so proud of her Jewish grandfather who practiced Judaism, who learned so much, who knew so much.
Throughout the other chapters of the book when she doesn’t even mention her grandfather, you know that her grandfather’s influence, is apparent in everything she does as a doctor, as a healer, as a human being.
Jewish ritual may not be part of her life anymore, but Jewish thinking and reaching out to others from a Jewish perspective is always part of her life.
That’s the hidden message in the book. The problem is that without the Jewish rituals and practices and mitzvot, Rachel Naomi Remen has no concrete receptacle through which to pass the Jewish values to children or grandchildren she may have.
Let me conclude with something that happened to me this past summer that is an example of connecting to Jewish values and being proud of them – most importantly of all, just even knowing that these are Jewish values, indisputably, and by definition they meet the criteria.
15 years ago, Robert Fulgham became a well-known author through the popularity and proliferation of his lovely essay, which still receives much attention.
I’m sure many of you remember at least the title, and I will ask you to fill in the last word of the title as I now begin to remind you of that piece of writing – the essay was called, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in …… - Kindergarten.”
Now while most of you can remember the title, how many can remember the contents of that essay? All I could remember was that somewhere in the essay there was a reference to eating cookies and taking a nap. At this point in my life, I prefer the nap to the cookies.
I was reminded of this essay when, during this past summer, I visited Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. to deliver a guest lecture in the biblical Hebrew course that is offered there sporadically.
So, on the July morning when I was to teach at Wesley I arrived early and went into the wonderful bookstore housed at the Seminary. After a moment of wandering around the store, this (hold up the poster) really attracted my attention.
It reads “Everything I Need to Know, I Learned From The Bible.”
Well great, I thought for sure that as attractive as this poster happens to be, there would definitely be a combination of quotations from the so-called “Old” Testament and “New” Testament.
After all, it says in the title – “Everything I Need to Know I Learned From The Bible.”
Let’s not forget where I was when I found this poster – in Wesley Theological Seminary’s Cokesbury Bookstore.
Well, when I scanned the statements and contents of the poster, not only was I amazed to see that all of the quotations are from the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. More than that, every single quotation is from one particular book of the Bible.
They’re all from the Book of Proverbs – known in Hebrew as Mishlei. Mishlei / Proverbs appears in the Bible immediately after the Book of Psalms, and is in the third section of the Hebrew Bible known as Ketuvim – the section called Writings.
I’m going to read the contents of this poster. They are all phrases
from verses in the Book of Proverbs, and the original citation from the Book
of Proverbs is listed below each of the phrases. I will not tell you chapter
and verse in each case. If any of these statements have special appeal to you,
and you would like to examine the original context, visit me sometime in the
year 5765 and I’ll provide you with chapter and verse.
Happiness makes you smile.
A kind answer soothes angry feelings.
A true friend will keep a secret.
You will say the wrong thing if you talk too much.
Don’t tell your neighbor to come back tomorrow, if you can help today.
Everyone likes to brag about getting a bargain.
Wise friends make you wise.
It’s better to be honest and poor, than to be dishonest and rich.
Telling lies will get you in trouble.
Don’t give up.
Make your parents proud, especially your mother.
Watching what you say can save you a lot of trouble.
Respect and obey the Lord.
Don’t tell everything you know.
Go looking for trouble, and you will find it.
Teach your children right from wrong, and when they are grown, they will still do right.
Not getting what you want can make you feel sick.
The hungrier you are, the harder you work.
Don’t try to get even.
All wisdom comes from the Lord, and so do common sense and understanding.
It’s a dangerous thing to guarantee payment for someone’s debts.
Don’t say, “I didn’t know it!” God can read your mind.
Don’t argue just to be arguing.
Obey the teaching of your parents.
Know where you are headed, and you will stay on solid ground.
Don’t ever think that you are wise enough.
Share your plans with the Lord, and you will succeed.
Does the young man I spoke of earlier know that these values are Jewish values?
Are they his values?
Can they be his values even if he doesn’t know them and hasn’t claimed them?
In reality, are they anything more than an old item in storage I only remember is in my possession, maybe, when it’s time to move from one place to another?
There’s only one way to remember any of these statements of Robert Fulgham or any other quotation you think is valuable. And that is to repeat it over and over again, and to live your life by its meaning and lesson.
The only way you can fully make it part of your life is by hammering away at your favorite verses, out loud and in your heart; to yourself and in front of others; in shul and at home – “And these words which I command you today shall be on your heart - you shall teach them to your children and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall tie them as a sign upon your head and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.”
These words are more than just a simple essay written by a clever author – they are the code of our lives which makes up the contents of the days in our year.
In order not to forget them, we must consistently and constantly read them, confront them, understand them, live our lives by them.
While most of the Book of Proverbs may not be well-known to you, at least a few sentences from the Book of Proverbs are very familiar to you – let me quote one of them to you - this verse is from Proverbs, Chapter 3, Verse 18:
I’ll start in Hebrew which in this case, you may know better than the English –
It is a tree of life for those who grasp it, and all who uphold it are blessed.
This verse says it all. We recite it with fervor and we sing it with spirit whenever we return the Torah to the Ark. It stirs us to the depths of our souls, almost every time. The words remind us that the Torah becomes a tree of life when we are mahazikin bah, when we hold it close to us.
After we finish our annual reading of the Torah we say the words hazak, hazak, v’nithazayk – strength, strength, let us give strength to one other.
The way we derive strength from the Torah is by being, mahazikim bah, is by strongly holding onto its words.
We read them from the Torah, we study them, we endear ourselves to them, we derive strength from them.
The year 5764 has come to a conclusion – what we do, how we act, how we behave, how we live our lives in the year 5765 will demonstrate how much strength we derived from the words of Torah we learned in 5764.
As we turn the corner toward a new year, please recite with me in a way similar to the way we conclude a reading of one of the books from the Torah – when I count to three, please recite the words hazak, hazak, v’nithazayak and I will repeat them.
One, two, three -
Repeat the words –
Strength, strength, let us give strength to one another.
Let us learn together, and let us live what we learn.
Let us together, as a congregation, as a community, as a people, grasp the tree of life, uphold it, and add blessing to our lives throughout the year 5765, and let us say, Amen!