So you think b’nai mitzvah celebrations have become bombastic, overpriced tension-fraught affairs that take a heavy toll on the kid and the parent? So you think there’s a better way?
So do two Jewish authorities who have assembled books on how to negotiate a child’s coming-of-age ceremony. Cantor Helen Leneman, editor of “Bar/Bat Mitzvah Basics,” organized a book replete with practical suggestions, from coping with interfaith and divorce issues to helping children with learning disabilities to dealing with skepticism about organized religion.
In Leneman’s book, Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin, author of “Putting God on the Guest List,” addresses the qualms of the nonobservant parent.
“Jewish theology must not be discarded as alien or irrelevant to the Jewish quest for meaning,” he writes. “But Jewish living is more powerful than being able to articulate a finely nuanced theology. We and God find each other in those moments when we, even in the midst of overwhelming doubt, self-consciousness, and cynicism, can begin to live a Jewish life.
“Bar and bat mitzvah is a time when we can truly find God — despite it all.”
In case you’re still feeling cynical, pick up a copy of “How to Survive and Profit from Your Son’s Bar Mitzvah” by Marvin Shapiro, a pseudonym for a writer and well-known trial lawyer who happens to be the vice president of his congregation “in a small community on the central California coast,” the slim volume informs us.
Departing from guides that focus on the sacred, Shapiro’s book is unabashedly profane.
While expenses for a b’nai mitzvah with 125 guests, he writes, can easily run to $13,200, if you’ve got chutzpah and are willing to get commercial sponsors you can actually turn a profit of over $3,000. This reviewer is not recommending that you actually try any of these suggestions. Instead, use them to lighten up your outlook:
*Get a local winery to sponsor a tasting in conjunction with the celebration. “They supply all the wine, and hopefully, they’ll sell some as well.”
*Go to the local college and work out deals with filmmaking and photography students. Get the student in Cinematography 101 to shoot your kid’s bar mitzvah for class credit.
*Get the local merchants’ names on the bar mitzvah program, charging them for the privilege.
*Underwrite the cost of the giveaway yarmulkes. “Lawyers are prime candidates for yarmulke sponsorship,” he writes. By having their names imprinted on the inside, they have a vehicle to “advertise without advertising…Discreet. Dignified. Always there. Doesn’t tear like a business card. And do you know of anyone who’s going to risk the wrath of heaven by throwing one away?”
*Put a scale and a cash register at the end of the buffet table, telling people to weigh their meal and use its price to contribute to charity. Use some of the money to “help defray expenses.”
Is this tasteless? Certainly, but in the stress of planning for a big day, sometimes a little comic relief is welcome.
Of course, Shapiro’s book won’t actually help get you through the practical preparation for the big day or assist with your child’s formal entry into the Jewish community. That’s where “Bar/Bat Mitzvah Basics” comes in. With chapters by rabbis, cantors, religious educators and parents, this book offers pointers on planning the service, coaching the child and dealing with synagogue professionals.
Although the majority of b’nai mitzvah services are held on the Shabbat morning closest to the child’s 13th birthday, services can be held anytime the Torah is read, including at havdallah (the end of Shabbat), on Rosh Chodesh (the new moon) or on Monday or Thursday mornings. In addition, if you have a choice, Leneman suggests considering the Torah portions that will be read before selecting a particular date.
Dealing sensitively with interfaith issues, Donna R. Hart, an educator and the daughter of Seventh-day Adventists, writes about including her parents in her son’s bar mitzvah. Her father read from Psalm 100 while her mother read a poem and her sister read lyrics from Rod Stewart’s “Forever Young.”
Like Hart’s own story, some of the most moving chapters in the book are those written by parents. My personal favorite, reprinted from Lilith, is Nechama Liss-Levenson’s “The Bat Mitzvah Dress: An Intergenerational Story.” Having hated the classic dress she was forced to wear at her own bat mitzvah, the writer not only made sure her daughters felt good about their own selections but she also used the occasions to “come of age” through her own fashion choices. They were neither classic nor restrained.
“I was able to express a part of me that I often kept hidden, something to do with sophistication and luxury.”
Beverly Weaver’s “Michael Becomes Bar Mitzvah: The Story of a Special Needs Child” offers encouragement to parents of children with learning disabilities. With careful planning and by setting realistic goals, Weaver prepared her son for his bar mitzvah, working with him five days a week over a two-year period.
With 16 chapters penned by different writers as well as the post-b’nai mitzvah reflections of four teens, “Bar/Bat Mitzvah Basics” includes a multitude of voices. As a result, there’s some repetition. But this is not a dry nuts-and-bolts planner. It’s flavored by the real experiences of real people, helping readers to recognize that they are not marking the passage alone.