Jewish tradition is an island of stability in a world that changes with disconcerting speed, but that doesn’t mean up-to-date technology can’t help with the details.
For students studying for bar or bat mitzvah, and for harried parents preparing for celebrations that would test the skills of a big-city convention planner, specialized computer software may be just what the doctor ordered.
On the Internet, the World Wide Web offers everything from information about b’nai mitzvah Israel tours and online gift-shopping to moral support for parents and kids alike.
Let’s not forget in this age of Doom and other cutting-edge games that personal computers are also powerful educational tools. Since preparing for a bar or bat mitzvah is a major challenge even for the brightest kids, it makes sense that software can help. Consider the Bar Mitzvah Personal Tutor by Lev software ( (800)776-6538). This slick little $99 package for IBM-compatible computers helps kids learn to match Hebrew words to the appropriate traditional melody when chanting from the Torah and haftorah.
For instance, want to learn the brachah before haftorah? Click on that menu choice, point to a Hebrew word on the screen and you can see the transliteration: With an F-key or mouse click, you can hear the melody as the pointer jumps from word to word in time to the music.
It’s better if you have a sound card, but if you don’t mind tinny computer-generated tones, the software works fine with more primitive systems. It’s not exactly an arcade game — preparing to read in synagogue isn’t reincarnation, after all. But there’s just enough cyber-glitz to keep kids interested.
If you’re a Mac user, check out the Digital Haftorah package. A demo version is available on America Online’s JEWISH.COMmunity Online, a great all-purpose site for Jewish cybernauts. From the main menu, select the “go to” option, then “keyword.” Next, type “Jewish” in the dialogue box — and find an array of Jewish resources.
Parents, too, can get some bar mitzvah relief from a number of software packages, although the industry has yet to come up with a program that will help pay soaring bar mitzvah expenses.
Having problems with your steadily lengthening guest list? Check out Castle Computer Technologies’ B’nai Mitzvah package, Windows-based software that manages lists and more: RSVP management, budgeting, seating charts and mailing labels. You can contact Castle by phone at (516) 331-6300, or check out their Web site at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages.emj/
The price of the package is $29 plus shipping, and you can order directly on the Web site. Or you can download a demo and give it a whirl before you buy.
Then there’s the Smart-N-Easy Bar Mitzvah Planner, another program that helps create order out of b’nai mitzvah chaos. It will help your youngster compose a speech, track expenses, arrange seating and maintain a gift list. Smart-N-Easy is shareware, which means you can download the package from a computer bulletin board, try it and then pay only if you decide to keep it. Check it out on America Online in the JEWISH.COMmunity Online section.
It requires an IBM computer, and runs under DOS.
Bar mitzvah resources on the Internet range from World Wide Web home pages featuring pictures from different families’ events to businesses offering bar and bat mitzvah goods and services.
The Web, for instance, can reveal all you ever wanted to know about Rabbi Jay Karzen, billed as “the bar mitzvah king,” who offers a “meaningful, memorable, inspiring religious ceremony regardless of denomination” in Israel.
Rabbi Karzen does the deed at the Western Wall, Masada and at various synagogues in Israel; he offers soup-to-nuts simchah packages. You can read all about it, and see pictures, by setting your Web browser to: http://www.israelvisit.co.il/bar-mitzva
If you’re going to a bar or bat mitzvah and don’t want to give the traditional fountain pen as a gift, there are a number of Judaica shops available on the Web. At the site of Judaica by Allison, for example (http//www.yomahs.com/aviel/index.htm), you can order via e-mail hand-calligraphed bar mitzvah cards.
Or you can check out a variety of gifts for the lucky youngster at http://pol.com, which is the home page of Image Plus Online, a Judaica supplier.
There are many others, too numerous to enumerate. But it’s easy to find them yourself using the search sites that put the entire vast reach of the Internet at your beck and call.
Try out the Alta Vista search engine at http://www.altavista.digital.com/. In the dialogue box, type “bar mitzvah,” click on “submit,” and up comes a list of hundreds of sites. Scroll through the list of businesses that sell bar mitzvah goods, hotels and travel agencies, kids describing their own celebrations, theological tracts, bar mitzvah humor. And click to your heart’s content.