This is a book that we have long needed. I wish
that it had been around when my children were becoming bar and bat
mitzvah. And so if you know a family which will soon approach this
event, run, don't walk, to get them a copy. They will bless you
for it.
On the one hand, bar and bat mitzvah are widely
observed. There was even a story in the Wall Street Journal a while
ago about how non Jewish kids are pestering their parents that they
want one too, since they are envious of their Jewish friends who
get to have such big parties. But on the other hand, children and
their parents are bewildered and confused over how to make these
events meaningful. Children wake up the morning after, after the
out of town relatives have left, and before the mountain of waiting
thank you notes has to be attacked and they ask themselves: what
was this event which took over our lives for the last six months
or more really all about?
Was the party that we threw only a way of reciprocating
for the ones that our kids were invited to? Were the adults whom
we invited really there only for business reasons or for social
ones? Was this Haftorah that our kids broke their teeth learning
how to chant for so many weeks connected in any way to the world
in which we live? And what message did we send our kids about our
values by holding such a lavish bash?
Danny Siegel's new book is filled on every page
with wise and helpful suggestions on how to avoid the let-down that
the child and the family so often feel after such a simcha. First
of all, it provides the child and the family with a whole different
perspective on what this event means. And then it provides the family
with a plethora of ideas on how to make this turning point in the
life of the child and in the life of the family a genuinely meaningful
event. Siegel provides a definition of what it means to become a
bar or bat mitzvah that I think sets the service and the party into
a good perspective. He says: in some cultures, the stages of life
are counted as infant, toddler, child, teen-ager, young adult, adult,
mid-life, empty nester, retiree, etc. In Jewish thought the stages
of life are: infancy, childhood and then Mitsvah Manhood or Womanhood.
The whole point of the day is to understand and accept the status
of one who is now capable and obligated to do good deeds.
If you accept this perspective, then everything
else begins to fall into place. What you say on the invitation,
whether you buy your kippot from Mayan women in Guatemala who do
good work and who live in utter poverty and desperately need the
work, what the child says in his talk, what kind of gifts go into
the goody bags that you give the kids who come,who you honor and
how you honor them, and what happens with the leftover food after
the party all flow directly from this understanding of what the
event is really all about. Let me give you just one example of what
Siegel proposes you can do if you have imagination and good will:
Everyone has a challah at the dinner, right? Technically,
you don't need a challah except at the Shabbat or the holiday meal,
but, for some reason, almost everyone has a big challah at the banquet
table. And usually we call upon Uncle Herman, who is still sober
this early in the evening, and who gave a pretty good gift and therefore
deserves an honor, and who is one of the few in the family whom
we can trust to do it right, to recite the Mots to do the honor.
But what more can we do with this ritual?
Level one: at most parties the caterer takes the
challah away the moment Uncle Herman recites the Motsi. It disappears
through the swinging doors that lead into the kitchen, and it comes
out some time later, neatly sliced and ready to serve. At some parties
that I have been to, the family does it differently. They all gather
around the challah, and instead of cutting it with a knife, each
member of the family tears off a piece. It involves everyone in
the mitzvah, and it is much more informal and heimish than having
one person do it, and then having the people in the kitchen do the
rest. And it is certainly easy to do.
Level two: consider baking the challah yourself,
as a family project. Baking the challah yourself is literally a
hands-on mitzvah.is it not? And believe me, knowing how to make
a challah is a very useful skill to have, something that will come
in handy for years to come in the life of the boy or girl who learns
how to do it. In this egalitarian age, who says that only girls
should know how to bake a challah?
Every Jewish wife will be delighted if she finds
out that the man she has married knows how to and likes to bake
challah, believe me Level three:ask the rabbi for a list of members
of the congregation who are in the hospital and bring them each
a challah in honor of Shabbat. If you have ever been in the hospital,
you know that it is a lonely and a scary experience, and it feels
especially lonely if you are there on Shabbat. Imagine what it would
mean to a patient to have someone come in, smile and wish them well,
and leave them a loaf of challah to enjoy in honor of Shabbat!.
Even if you decide to buy instead of to bake, consider buying a
couple of extra challot that you can deliver to congregants who
are in the hospital in honor of the simcha..
Level four: if you have a challah, you have to
have a challah cover. Why not assign the honor of making one to
one of your relatives or friends who sews. They will feel honored
and delighted to be given this mitzvah. Or you can go on the web
and find lots and lots of places where you can purchase a challah
cover and help the poor at the same time. My favorite is Yad Lakashish,
Lifeline to the Poor, where you can not only pick up some beautifully
crafted challah covers but can give honor and dignity to the elderly
who make them at the same time.
Level five: and now it gets exciting. What if you
went to your local Senior Citizens Center or to your local nursing
home or assisted living center and asked if any one there still
remembers how to sew and knit? If they do, then offer them the mitzvah
of making the challah cover for the simchah. You will have a work
of art that has been specially commissioned for your simcha. How
many people can say that?
And then level six: invite the senior citizen who
has made the challah cover for you to the dinner as your guest,
and introduce her to everyone as the artist who made the challah
cover which is being used at this event for the very first time.
If you do that, you will have two mitsvot for the price of one:
you will have added a lovely new work of ritual art to the simcha
and you will have fulfilled the mitzvah of bringing out the radiance
in the face of our elders.
And the challah cover that made its debut at this
event can become a family treasure to be taken out again as the
engagement party, at the wedding, and, if we are fortunate, at the
simcha of the bar mitsvah's child's bar mitzvah. And the child will
have learned some important lessons both about how we treat bread
and about how we treat old people.
This is just one small example of the kind of innovative
thinking that is found on almost every single page of this book.
If even a simple challah can provide so many different opportunities
for 'Mitsvah-izing', then so can every other detail and every other
aspect of the experience. Every detail-the invitation, the mitzvah
project, the dvar torah, the centerpiece, etc. etc. no matter how
small a detail it may be, has the power to become a method for doing
good, and, if it does, then the benefits to the bar or the bat mitzvah
child and to everyone else who is present are very great.
There is an old joke that you have probably heard
that explains why we need this book so much. An exhausted parent
says after his child's simcha: "If bar mitzvah is going to get any
more expensive, I hope that the next one runs away and becomes bar
mitzvah at a justice of the peace!"
For that parent and for all those who understand
what he is saying, this book is a precious resource. And so if you
know any family that is approaching these days of stress and trauma,
get them this book.
ORDER IT NOW!!!
