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  • Becoming a Bar Mitzvah


    Bar Mitzvah literally translates as "son of commandment." The word "bar" means "son" in Aramaic, which was the commonly spoken vernacular language of the Jewish people (and much of the Middle East) from around 500 B.C.E. to 400 C.E. The word "mitzvah" is Hebrew for "commandment." The term "bar mitzvah" refers to two things: it is used to describe a boy when he comes of age at 13-years-old and also refers to the religious ceremony that accompanies a boy becoming a Bar Mitzvah. Often a celebratory party will follow the ceremony and that party is also called a bar mitzvah.

    This article discusses what it means for a Jewish boy to "become a Bar Mitzvah." For information about the Bar Mitzvah ceremony or celebration please read: "What Is a Bar Mitzvah?"

    Becoming a Bar Mitzvah: Rights and Responsibilities

    When a Jewish boy turns 13-years-old he becomes a "bar mitzvah," whether or not the event is marked with a ceremony or celebration. According to Jewish custom this means that he is considered old enough to have certain rights and responsibilities. These include:

    • Performing Mitzvot: Jewish children are not required to perform mitzvot (plural for mitzvah, meaning "commandments"). While they are encouraged fulfill as many mitzvot as possible, the commandments are not obligatory until a boy becomes bar mitzvah. In traditional Jewish practice, a boy who has become bar mitzvah must observe mitzvot just like any adult. These include, but are not limited to, mitzvot such as wearing teffilin, fasting on Yom Kippur and performing acts of tzedakah (charity).
    • Ethical Responsibility: While not all Jews observe mitzvot, all Jews do recognize that when a boy becomes bar mitzvah he has reached the age of moral and ethical accountability.
    • Religious Services: A bar mitzvah has the right to participate in leading a religious service and also counts in a minyan. (A minyan is a gathering of at least ten men of bar mitzvah age or older. It is required to perform a full prayer service. Women of bat mitzvah age or older also count in some branches of Judaism).
    • Legal Rights: According to traditional Jewish law, a boy who has become bar mitzvah can sign a contract and testify in a court proceeding.
    • Marriage: In traditional Jewish law, a boy can technically be married when he becomes a bar Mitzvah. However, both ancient and modern sources recommend 16 to 18-years-old as the earliest point when a boy should be married.


    Becoming 'A Man'

    Many Jews talk about becoming a bar mitzvah as "becoming a man," but this is not correct. A Jewish boy who has become a bar mitzvah has many of the rights and responsibilities of a Jewish adult (see above), but he is not considered an adult in the full sense of the word yet. Jewish tradition makes this abundantly clear. For instance, in Mishnah Avot 5:21 13-years-old is listed as the age of responsibility for the mitzvot, but the age for marriage is set at 18-years-old and the age for earning a living at 20-years-old. Hence, a bar mitzvah is not a full-fledged adult yet, but Jewish tradition recognizes this age as the point when a child can differentiate between right and wrong and hence can be held accountable for his actions.

    One way to think about becoming bar mitzvah in Jewish culture is to think about the way secular culture treats teens and children differently. A teenager below the age of 18 does not have all of the legal rights and responsibilities of a full adult, but he is treated differently than younger children. For instance, in most U.S. states children can legally work part-time once they are 14-years-old. Similarly, in many states children younger than 18 can marry with special parental and/or judicial consent. Children in their teens can also be treated as adults in criminal proceedings depending on the circumstance of the crime.
  • The Bat Mitzvah Ceremony and Celebration



    Bat mitzvah literally means "daughter of commandment." The word bat translates to "daughter" in Aramaic, which was the commonly spoken language of the Jewish people and much of the Middle East from about 500 B.C.E. to 400 C.E. The word mitzvah is Hebrew for "commandment."

    The Term Bat Mitzvah Refers to Two Things

    When a girl reaches 12-years-old she becomes a bat mitzvah and is recognized by Jewish tradition as having the same rights as an adult. She is now morally and ethically responsible for her decisions and actions, whereas prior to her adulthood, her parents would be morally and ethically responsible for her actions.
    Bat mitzvah also refers to a religious ceremony that accompanies a girl becoming a bat mitzvah. Often a celebratory party will follow the ceremony and that party is also called a bat mitzvah. For example, one might say "I am going to Sarah's bat mitzvah this weekend," referencing the ceremony and party to celebrate the occasion.
    This article is about the religious ceremony and party referred to as a bat mitzvah. The specifics of the ceremony and party, even whether there is a religious ceremony to mark the occasion, vary widely depending on to which movement of Judaism the family belongs.

    History

    In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Jewish communities began marking when a girl became a bat mitzvah with a special ceremony. This was a break from traditional Jewish custom, which prohibited women from participating directly in religious services.

    Using the bar mitzvah ceremony as a model, Jewish communities began to experiment with developing a similar ceremony for girls. In 1922, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan performed the first proto-bat mitzvah ceremony in America for his daughter Judith, when she was allowed to read from the Torah when she became a bat mitzvah. Although this new found privilege did not match the bar mitzvah ceremony in complexity, the event nevertheless marked what is widely considered to be the first modern bat mitzvah in the United States. It triggered the development and evolution of the modern bat mitzvah ceremony.

    The Ceremony in Non-Orthodox Communities

    In many liberal Jewish communities, for example, Reform and Conservative communities, the bat mitzvah ceremony has become almost identical to the bar mitzvah ceremony for boys. These communities usually require the girl to do a significant amount of preparation for a religious service. Often she will study with a Rabbi and/or Cantor for several months, and sometimes years. While the exact role she plays in the service will vary between the different Jewish movements and synagogues, it usually involves some or all of the elements below:

    Leading specific prayers or the entire service during a Shabbat service or, less commonly, weekday religious service.
    Reading the weekly Torah portion during a Shabbat service or, less commonly, weekday religious service. Often the girl will learn and use the traditional chant for the reading.
    Reading the weekly Haftarah portion during a Shabbat service or, less commonly, weekday religious service. Often the girl will learn and use the traditional chant for the reading.
    Giving a speech about the Torah and/or Haftarah reading.
    Completing a tzedakah (charity) project leading up to the ceremony to raise money or donations for a charity of the bat mitzvah’s choice.
    The family of the bat mitzvah is often honored and recognized during the service with an aliyah or multiple aliyot. It has also become the custom in many synagogues for the Torah to be passed from grandparents to parents to the bat mitzvah herself, symbolizing the passing down of the obligation to engage in the study of Torah and Judaism.

    While the bat mitzvah ceremony is a milestone life-cycle event and is the culmination of years of study, it is actually not the end of a girl's Jewish education. It simply marks the beginning of a lifetime of Jewish learning, study, and participation in the Jewish community.

    The Ceremony in Orthodox Communities

    Since the involvement of women in formal religious ceremonies is still prohibited in most Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, the bat mitzvah ceremony does not generally exist in the same format as in the more liberal movements. However, a girl becoming a bat mitzvah is still a special occasion. Over the last few decades, public celebrations of the bat mitzvah have become more common among Orthodox Jews, although the celebrations are different from the type of bat mitzvah ceremony described above.

    Ways of marking the occasion publicly vary by community. In some communities, bat mitzvah's may read from the Torah and lead a special prayer service for women only. In some Ultra-Orthodox Haredi communities girls have special meals for women only during which the bat mitzvah will give a D'var Torah, a short teaching about the Torah portion for her bat mitzvah week. In many Modern Orthodox communities on the Shabbat following a girl becoming a bat mitzvah she may deliver a D'var Torah as well. There is no uniform model for the bat mitzvah ceremony in Orthodox communities yet, but the tradition continues to evolve.

    Celebration and Party

    The tradition of following the religious bat mitzvah ceremony with a celebration or even a lavish party is a recent one. As a major life-cycle event, it is understandable that modern Jews enjoy celebrating the occasion and have incorporated the same sorts of celebratory elements that are part of other life-cycle events. But just as the wedding ceremony is more important than the reception that follows, it is important to remember that a bat mitzvah party is simply the celebration marking the religious implications of becoming a bat mitzvah. While a party is common among more liberal Jews, it has not caught on among Orthodox communities.

    Gifts

    Gifts are commonly given to a ​bat mitzvah (usually after the ceremony, at the party or meal). Any present appropriate for a 13-year-old girl’s birthday can be given. Cash is commonly given as a bat mitzvah gift as well. It has become the practice of many families to donate a portion of any monetary gift to a charity of the bat mitzvah's choosing, with the remainder often being added to the child's college fund or contributing to any further Jewish education programs she may attend.
  • About Bar/Bat Mitzvah




    Many people are surprised to find out that “becoming bar/bat mitzvah” happens automatically when a Jewish boy reaches the age of 13 and or a girl 12. The ceremony that today occupies center stage is actually a historical afterthought, with evidence of observance only from sometime between the 14th and 16th centuries. Because the ceremony marks reaching the age of majority, many traditional Jews observe it on the Sabbath immediately following the child’s birthday.Holding Torah

    For the rabbis, the significance of this life-changing moment lay in the child’s new stage of physical, intellectual, and moral development. They saw 12 and 13 as the ages at which girls and boys, respectively, were no longer entirely subject to impulse, but were beginning to develop a conscience. The term bar/bat mitzvah –which means “obligated to perform the Jewish mitzvot (commandments)”–reflects the child’s newfound capabilities and responsibilities.

    Although the ceremony that communally affirms the child’s coming of age is medieval in origin, there is evidence in rabbinic literature that the father may have recited a blessing when the child reached the age of majority. This blessing, called baruch she’p’tarani, thanks God for freeing the father from responsibility for the child’s behavior, signaling a transition of control and hence responsibility from parent to child


    Development of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah

    The relatively late development of the bar mitzvah ceremony probably derives from changes in communal customs regarding what ritual activities a child was allowed to perform. According to the Talmud, which was completed around the sixth century CE, boys were permitted to perform many ritual acts, for example, donning tefillin (phylacteries), whenever they had developed the necessary expertise and were able to understand the ritual’s significance. Later this window of opportunity closed, and children were not allowed to perform these rituals until they had reached the age of majority. At this point, a ceremony celebrating the first performance of these rituals began to make sense.

    The bat mitzvah ceremony observed in the liberal movements came much later. It grew out of a broader societal focus on women’s rights, with the first American bat mitzvah occurring in 1922. The concept of a bat mitzvah ceremony within traditional Judaism is far more recent. Because Jewish law limits a woman’s religious responsibilities primarily to commandments that are not time-bound (meaning, not required to be performed at a particular time), a woman’s Jewish activity occurred primarily within the private, familial realm rather than the public, communal one. Because women were not required to perform any overt and visible mitzvot as were men, a ceremony made little sense. Yet in the late 20th century, as observant women have become more Judaically educated, they too are pressing to create meaningful rituals for bat mitzvah .

    Because the rabbis specified no ritual requirements for the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony, except for the parental blessing, the roles played by the bar/bat mitzvah at the service and even the timing of the service itself can vary widely. The typical bar/bat mitzvah takes place during the Sabbath morning service, where the child is called up to say the blessings over the Torah–his or her first aliyah. Children may read from the Torah ; chant the haftarah, the weekly prophetic portion; lead some or all of the congregational service; and offer a personal interpretation of the weekly Torah portion, called a d’var Torah. The bar/bat mitzvah takes on similar roles when the ceremony occurs on a holiday, on Rosh Chodesh–the first day of the new Hebrew month, on a Monday or Thursday morning, or on a Sabbath afternoon. The Torah is not read on Friday nights and would be read by observant girls only at a women’s prayer service.


    A Time of Change

    The year of intensive preparation that precedes the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony itself signals a change in the relationship and “balance of power” between the parent and child along with the immense changes in the child’s own physical and intellectual persona. On a religious level these changes are acknowledged by the baruch she’p’tarani blessing. On a psychological level, it is the parents who had better acknowledge them or beware! This period is one of intense negotiation, requiring new models of decision making as well as the adoption of new familial roles. When a child misses this rite of passage, he or she certainly is still bar mitzvah, but the chance is seemingly gone for a spiritual coming of age that mirrors the physical, intellectual, and emotional milestones of the new teenager.


    For Converts

    And what of converts who want to affirm their attachments to Judaism by devoting extra time to Jewish learning and those who came late to religious observance? In the last 30 years or so, a solution has developed–a belated celebration called adult bar/bat mitzvah. Small groups of adults join together in synagogue-based classes for one to two years, studying Jewish history, theology, texts, and prayer, and learning to read Hebrew and to chant Torah and haftarah. The process of study, which creates a strong sense of community among the participants and often carries over into increased synagogue involvement, culminates in an adult bar/bat mitzvah ceremony where adults publicly reclaim their spiritual heritage.

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