Shabbat evening

[cellio]

Very occasionally we have a bar or bat mitzvah at the Friday-night service. Perhaps ironically (given the d'var torah I just posted), this week was one of those. With a couple small exceptions, it was pretty much spot-on what such a service should be.

There were obviously some special circumstances in the family. I don't know what they were and I'm certainly not going to pry, but the boy's parents did not participate in the service (I don't know if they were present, nor am I certain they're alive). The boy, in his d'var torah, said something to the effect that a bar mitzvah was not at all a sure thing for him; he didn't know if he'd be allowed to have such a ceremony. (You are, of course, bar or bat mitzvah even without the ceremony, but few people use this language precisely. Just clarifying.) I don't know what that means; as I said, I don't know the family situation.

The boy led about as much of the service as I expected; he seemed to struggle in a few places, but he also seemed basically competent so I think it was nerves, not (say) a disability. He read three verses of torah, which is the minimum; some kids do more but not all. He did not read haftarah, and I'd love to know whether that was something about the circumstances or new policy. I'd love for it to be new policy for the Friday service, where we do not read haftarah on other nights. The meme should be that you fit a bar mitzvah into the existing service, not that you re-arrange the community's service completely to accommodate a desire to give the kid spotlight time. (We do read haftarah on Shabbat morning.)

There were three aliyot, which is the rabbi's compromise between our Friday norm of one and the Shabbat-morning norm of seven. On Saturday mornings, one of the issues that keep it from being a community service is that the family grabs all seven of those aliyot; if you're a regular congregant who just happens to go to the bar-mitzvah service, it's pretty clear you are aren't really considered part of the congregation there, which I feel is quite rude and contrary to what Shabbat is about. (It's not just that, of course; it's the whole beauty-pageant aspect of that service. I've written about this before.)

So, back to Friday night: I don't know if this was family circumstances or an attempt to be more open, but one of those three aliyot was given to someone who is not in the family. He might be a family friend; I wouldn't know. But he's, y'know, someone I've seen at services before, someone who's a member of our congregation. I've heard of him. That was nice.

The boy began his speech by saying "I'd like to thank everyone for coming". And then he gave his d'var, which did not include the phrase "my torah portion is $name, which is about...". That was refreshing. No tedious "and I'd like to thank Aunt Irma for baby-sitting me when I was four" etc, and he spent most of his time actually saying something. And it was something worth hearing. I'd like to thank whoever gave him that clue. (I complimented him Friday night at the oneg, but of course many people were trying to greet him so we didn't talk.)

One of the standard parts of our bar-mitzvah service that I've been hoping for years to kill is the "parental greeting", aka "long-winded kvell not accessible to the congregation". (Because, you know, we should really care deeply that he excelled on the swim team in middle school, or whatever.) I thought we might skip that this time, given the lack of parents, but the boy's grandmother was playing the parental role in the ceremony, and at the appointed time the rabbi invited her up. Sigh, I thought. And she said, roughly, "I'm very proud of you", hugged him, and sat down. Excellent. I'm assuming that this is extreme clue on the part of that grandmother rather than new dictate, but I'd love to be wrong. (In case you're wondering, the rabbi always addresses the bar mitzvah in a way that is both personalized and relevant to the congregation. So it's not like the service is devoid of individual acknowledgement. Therefore I think the parents should not get their own speech. It's not needed and they tend to do it badly.)

All in all, the right things happened at this service. If that was intentional rather than accidental, this service can serve as a model for other families that do their celebrations on Friday nights. And even if it was an accident, I hope we can find a way to make it a model for other families anyway. It was much more effective than the norm; the inclusion of a bar mitzvah did not alienate the congregation the way it usually does. It's a pity if it took special circumstances to make that happen, but it would be more of a pity if our congregation doesn't learn anything from the experience.

Comments

[cellio]

I've seen a lot of parental kvells that both went on overly long and were opaque to the congregation. Either is bad; the combination is worse. My rabbi does give them guidelines; oftentimes they just don't listen.

My rabbi also speaks about the bar or bat mitzvah, and has the skill to speak both individually to the kid and to the whole congregation. He's very good at it. I think this fulfills the need to say something special about the kid, and that the parents should save theirs for the party (where they are free to go on at length, because everyone there wants to be there). But I think we should take away their speech on the bimah. (They are involved in the ceremony in other ways, so it's not like that's their one shot.)

The best ones, though, are the ones that are a spiritual exprience rather than a stage show.

Amein. That's the minority in my experience, but it's great when it happens. Those are the kids who get it.

[zahavalaska.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I'm glad that one went well! It's one of the things I was thrilled to find when I got here. "Bnei Mitzvah Season" is in the summer because most kids' relatives only want to come in the summer. And even with the "drive by" Bat Mitzvahs (girls who go to our Orthodox neighbor and come to religious school for 2 years so they can have a public ceremony) there were still only 6 or 7 of them and they were incredible community events. I was brand new here, barely knew anyone, and I had a great time. It also probably helped that most kids didn't have enough relatives to do all 7 aliyot so "regular" congregants were pretty involved.