"private" versus community bar-mitzvah services

[cellio]

Judging by the traffic on relevant mailing lists, lots of Reform congregations have the problem of families expecting to "own" the service at which their kid is bar or bat mitzvah. ("Own" means the kid does most of the service, family members get all or nearly all of the honors, the parents stand up and kvell about the kid for several minutes, and so on.) The topic came up again this week, with someone asserting that we have to make kids feel welcome and this "cannot be done" by a service not owned by the family.

I find myself wanting to write about this from time to time, so I'm recording my response to that message:

If we are to embrace and welcome the students as they attain their next level into adulthood and make them feel wanted, we must support them in their studies and praise them for their accomplishments. This cannot be done by 'community owned' services.

It can be and is done. I have been to services in several congregations where a bar or bat mitzvah was an integrated part of a community service, with the family neither "owning" the service nor being sidelined. It can work. I have only seen this once in a Reform congregation (Holy Blossom in Toronto); it is the norm in Orthodox and many Conservative congregations, and it worked beautifully the one time I saw it at Shir Chadash (traditional egalitarian) in Jerusalem.

The problem is the following vicuious cycle: families in the "it's all about me" generations in America demand ownership and won't participate in a community service, they get this, as a result the community doesn't come to the "private" service, and so more families feel justified in this expectation ("they don't come anyway"). This is made worse by the fact that most of our members don't see our congregations as important communities; I see much more of a "consumer" attitude. If you're part of a community then of course you want to celebrate your milestones together; if you see the synagogue as the place where you buy services such as a bar mitzvah, you're less likely to be interested in what the community wants or needs. I'm not pointing fingers; this is just how it looks from here in the pew, from someone who's there pretty much every week and sees who does and doesn't come regularly.

I don't know how you stomp out the "private bar mitzvah" once it's present; congregations that have never let it take root do not seem to have a problem with b'nei mitzvah feeling, and being, welcomed into the community. And I sure don't know how we fix the broader problem of community engagement.

Comments

[chite.livejournal.com]

I am not Jewish, but I can equate this to something that happens in my church. That is, probably 95% of baptisms at my church are community baptisms. It is a relatively new thing, so it's a good example.

When you attend your class, you are told that in our church, we hold baptisms during Sunday morning or Saturday evening mass, with very few exceptions. It is explained that a baptism is a ceremony of welcome, and because of that, it is really important that the congregation be there. The families are given special seating because it IS a special day, but the focus is still on community.

In addition, we have 2 baptismal founts; one is the extremely cool fount at the back of the church and the other is the not so cool one in the chapel. If for some reason, you insist on a private service, you get the less cool chapel. Some people don't care but some people love the main church so much that even if they don't like to share, they'll do it for the site.

So basically, the idea is to make the public service seem much cooler, and then to make it the norm, and then to make it much more of a pain to arrange a private service.

Like I said, we now have about 95% of the baptisms as public ones. People LOVE our public services. Micah's baptism was not only public but was even shared with another baby. And it's really easy to plan, because you look at the calendar where it has the dates and times of the services, and you just call to get on the schedule. There's one available every Sunday and 2 Saturdays per month, so you have a bunch of choices. It's only the people who truly can't fit into the schedule who arrange for a private ceremony now.