bar mitzvah: families versus the community

[cellio]

We have a large congregation, so there is a bar or bat mitzvah almost every Saturday morning. These are held at services that are attended primarily by the families and friends, not by a consistent community. The regular Shabbat community comes Friday nights and, for some, to the other minyan on Saturday morning. Things have been this way from time immemorial, or so I'm told. This isn't the way a bar mitzvah is supposed to work in theory; it's supposed to be about the kid taking his place in the community. But our situation is pretty common, unfortunately.

But we're a large congregation, and sometimes there are more 13-year-olds than available Saturday mornings, and rather than double up on kids they'll occasionally stick a bar or bat mitzvah on a Friday night. (Ours, like most Reform congregations, reads some torah on Friday night, so this is plausible.) But the families, for the most part, don't seem to understand that they are modifying an established service with an established community, and they are not entitled to make it fully "about them" the way they can on Saturday mornings.

So we get grumpy family members who are upset because they didn't get seven aliyot to hand out to all the cousins, and we get kids who spend more time thanking their family and friends than speaking words of torah, and we get parents who go on at length with the "parental greeting" that is really only about the family, and the community gets shoved aside. (Even though they cut other stuff from the service to make room, one of these will run 20-30 minutes longer than a regular Friday service.) I know many people who just do not come on Friday nights when there is a bar or bat mitzvah. I've been tempted, but I don't really want to flee and provide that little bit of extra evidence that "the community doesn't come anyway so we can get away with this".

I want to talk to our rabbis, because I want to see this change, but I have to figure out how to approach them. I would like to see a Friday-night bar/bat mitzvah be treated as a privilege, an honor, a reward. I would like to see the future confirmands of the year on Friday nights, not the kids who've publicly said they're ditching Judaism as soon as the party is over. I would like to see the families work within the structure of the existing Friday-night service and make it less about their kids. (I think there's corrolation here; a kid who's going to stick with things and is mature enough to realize he's part of a community is more likely to want to function in that community.) It'll take years, but I would like the typical family's view of the Friday-night assignment to shift from "booby prize" to "special honor". (And just once, when families are going on about themselves, I'd like to see someone thank the congregation for their patience.)

If this could work, then maybe, in a decade or two, we'll even see the Saturday-morning bar mitzvah shift in focus from the family to the community. Wouldn't that be grand? Heck, the first time one of our kids says he wants to do his bar mitzvah at the established informal service rather than a special family service, I'll be thrilled. (We had someone recently who, in retrospect, could have done that, if anyone had thought of it in time.)

I wonder how we can get there.

Comments

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

First, I'm surprised they move an overlapping B'nei Mitzvah to Friday night. Most congregation's I've seen do a Saturday afternoon B'nei Mitzvah as the 2^nd timeslot, with Erev Shabbat as a 3^rd backup.

I also note the alternate Saturday morning minyan. In the congregation we have just joined (http://www.tbhla.org/), they do an early Saturday morning minyan (I think 9:00 -10:30 ), with the B'nei Mitzvah service starting a little later (11:00 ).

As for how to move away from the commercialism and spectacle: I have no idea. I agree it is far too common (and did you see the article on the mock mitzvah: i.e., "bar mitzvah" parties for those who aren't Jewish and just want the ritual party). I wonder if at some point in the future, the "mock mitzvah" and the quinceanera parties will merge in the non-Jewish community?

[cellio]

I'm surprised that Saturday afternoon isn't considered an option. I've been told that when the idea is suggested to families, they first ask "what's that?" and then say no. I would think it would be perfect -- it's a shorter service with more of a focus on the torah reading, so it should meet their goals well. And then they can have a dinner reception somewhere.

We have an early morning service on Saturday every week (torah study at 8:30, service at 9). The bar-mitzvah service, when held, starts at 10:30; the rabbi leaves the early service to go do that and lay leaders take over. That informal minyan is our congregation's regular, established Shabbat-morning service, though most people would assume that the 10:30 service in the sanctuary is the "main" one. But really, it's just the bar-mitzvah service; the regulars go to the early service.

So the only conflict between the bar-mitzvah service and regular services is when the bar mitzvahs won't fit in the available Saturday-10:30 slots and they pop up on Friday nights. I think I'm going to make another push for mincha, and also push for Rosh Chodesh when on a Sunday and the Sundays during chol ha-moed, as magid suggested.

and did you see the article on the mock mitzvah

Ugh. Yes, I saw that. The extent to which people Just Don't Get It continues to astound me. I mean, why stop there? We could have mock graduations, mock weddings, mock baby showers for mock babies... why worry about reality? I hope that no respectable rabbi is going along with fake bar mitzvahs.