park city, utah | The time comes in a Jewish girl’s life when she reaches religious maturity. For Kayla Zuckerman, 12, of Savannah, Ga., that meant zipping up her purple parka, popping into her yellow Vertigo skis and hitting the slopes.
“I never wanted a big bat mitzvah,” Kayla said Saturday, Jan.1. “I just wanted it with close family and friends.”
And that was exactly what she had.
In a rustic log cabin — Sunset Cabin at Deer Valley Resort — perched 9,000 feet above sea level, Kayla honored the milestone occasion on New Year’s morning with a group of 25. The attendees — Park City friends, as well as travelers from Texas, New York, Connecticut and New Mexico — had to prove their desire to join her.
“You want to be there? You’ve got to ski there,” Joel Zuckerman, Kayla’s father, said. Family members share a townhouse in Park City and are frequent visitors to the area.
It was an adventure for everyone involved, including Rabbi Josh Aaronson, 43, the spiritual leader at Park City’s Temple Har Shalom. The rabbi, who fired up the cabin’s small wood-burning stove, said he had never heard of a mountainside bat mitzvah during ski season.
“Whether it’s one of a kind, I’m not sure. But there’s a good chance it is,” said Aaronson, who carried the Torah scroll up the mountain by snowmobile and wore a backpack to transport the Manishewitz wine and challah for blessings. “We have a small community, and we like to create experiences that are meaningful and unique to families.”
Guests planted their skis and poles in the deep snow outside, before clomping into the small cabin. They shed their goggles, helmets and gloves, and worked to find their places in the cramped room.
“Look how prepared I am,” called out Ivan Boasher, who unzipped his ski jacket to reveal a dress shirt and tie.
Boasher, a non-Jewish guest who hadn’t read his invitation and wasn’t up on the dress code, drove for two days from Houston to be at Kayla’s ceremony.
The Zuckermans, who had had a traditional synagogue bat mitzvah in Savannah for their older daughter, Karli, now 15, were looking to do something different.
“We wanted something much more like our family — outdoorsy, laid-back, yet spiritual,” Kayla’s mother, Elaine, said.
Kayla, in her blue fleece vest and pink ski cap, stood before the assembled group with the rabbi beside her.
Together, they led the group in an abbreviated Shabbat morning service, a silent prayer for the victims of the recent tsunamis, songs and the stomping of ski boots.
Using a silver pointer to guide her, Kayla read the Hebrew text of Shemot, the beginning of the Book of Exodus. The Torah portion tells the story of Jacob and his sons leaving the land of Israel for Egypt, where the new Pharaoh — threatened by Jacob’s descendants — enslaves them.
In her talk, Kayla said, “It is ironic that the Israelites are feared because of their numbers,” speaking of the universal need for acceptance. “Currently the Jews make up such a small percentage of the world population — less than 1 percent.”
Kayla, who studied with the rabbi by phone over an 18-month period, said the cost of the Pharaoh’s oppression was immeasurable: “They might have been able to accomplish great things together.”
Later, over lunch at the Snow Park Lodge, guests praised Kayla for emphasizing the service and not being blinded by the party, which she will have in March.
“Coming from New York, where bar and bat mitzvahs are very glitzy … it was very special,” said Kayla’s aunt, Chaye Shapot, who said one friend of hers booked the NBA’s Knicks City Dancers for her child’s party.
Boasher, the man in the tie, said he appreciated the preserved tradition and educational value.
“It was pure, like the snow that was falling,” he said.