A Stiff-Necked People
The Mandan Indians, who lived by the Missouri River, performed a rite of passage: the adolescent would hang from the ceiling by hooks through the flesh of his chest, and swing for three days.
But that is nothing in comparison with the Jews. We, the Chosen People, know how to celebrate a birthday like no other.
A Jewish boy, by his thirteenth year, must go through much more than just a little bit of hanging. The young Jew must survive a Bar Mitzvah—a lot tougher. The Jewish brain has devised a trial in which a youth must stand before the congregation, give a speech, and sing, precisely at the age when his voice is breaking and the no-longer-a-boy-but-not-yet-a-man is constantly embarrassed.
Not for nothing do our Scriptures say הִנֵּה צְרַפְתִּיךָ… בְּכוּר עֹנִי is not for nothing that our texts say, “Behold, I have refined you… in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10). The Jewish people iss strong, tough, and hard, and not just in the nape of the neck.
A Vort in Honor of Our Boy
At my Bar Mitzvah, after my speech, the rabbi followed up with blessings… and a rebuttal. Perhaps he thought that nothing suits a Jew better than discussing Torah—and a rebuttal is a sort of discussion. In any case, he achieved the desired effect. I never forgot my Bar Mitzvah, as I might if my Bar Mitzvah had just been an ordinary party.
So we forge the Jew , like iron from common ore!
In my in-laws’ synagogue, which due to Loshon Hora will remain anonymous, a boy once appeared on the bimah who clearly did not want to be there. He wore street clothes, did nothing more than quickly mumble the blessing. Afterward, the rabbi gave his sermon and concluded with the wise consolation, “Everyone must do according to his own level” An important lesson: Even the simple uneducated Jew, can take benefit from surviving his Bar Mitzvah ordeal!
This same rabbi, on another Sabbath, blessed the Bar Mitzvah boy with, “He smells good.” Huh? What other blessing would an adolescent want, precisely when his body is changing!
Perhaps you fear that our dear Jewish daughters might, God forbid, be left out? Don’t worry! I once heard a mother bless her Bat Mitzah daughter before the congregation. She remarked that the girl, whose name was Hadassah, was green. And ugly. Green and ugly. It turns out that the mother was referring to a passage in the Gemara stating that the original Hadassah, Queen Esther, was yerakroket, greenish. (Everything appears somewhere in Midrash, in this case, in Tractate Megillah 13a.) The mother then drew the conclusion that her daughter was a green, ugly thing, but then also a clever, beautiful one. (The mother was no ignoramus: she had a doctorate in psychology. What led her to talk that way is beyond me.)
Just the Right Atmosphere for Torah
The high point of the Bar Mitzvah is the young man’s reading from the Torah. Even the best-educated child finds it difficult to read without vowels, without punctuation marks, without cantillation marks. All the more so suffers the average, simple Jewish boy who lacks scholarly and musical ability. He has to learn his portion by heart and sing it before the entire community: family, neighbors, and strangers.
When he makes a mistake, everyone “helps” him by calling out the correction aloud. Comedians deal with hecklers, but the most experienced comedian has never experienced hecklers like that.
In the German dictionary, the phrase “wie in einer Judenschule” (“like in a synagogue”) is translated as “tumultuous; noisy”. This is exactly the right description for an environment in which the Bar Mitzvah boy can demonstrate his abilities in Torah study. And manliness. Don’t forget manliness. Manliness is also important.
And all this the growing boy must do precisely when his voice is changing and constantly cracking.
Two years after my Bar Mitzvah, I led the Musaf service at the lectern. For “Adon Olam,” I sang the usual melody in my cracking voice. No one sang along, and I had to sing to the end entirely solo. Afterward, I was praised for the “original and creative” melody; it was nothing of the sort— it was just my croaking voice! What a humiliation for a fifteen-year-old!
And since then, nothing—absolutely nothing—has ever been difficult for me.
At my university, a twenty-year-old girl celebrated a belated Bat Mitzvah and read from the Torah at the lectern. She was so frightened that she bent her face down over the Torah scroll, her nose almost on the parchment. The rabbi had to gently help her stand up straight. This is how it’s done: This is how girls get the opportunity to grow in spirituality and rule the home and the world with an iron fist, as befits a Jewish daughter.
He Shall Surely Be Stoned
Despite the common misconception, the Bar Mitzvah is not the age of adulthood (which is 20). Thirteen is, rather, the age of responsibility for one’s sins. A Bible verse teaches us that a rebellious son (ben sorer u’moreh), a boy who curses his parents, should die for his sin (Deuteronomy 21). But our Sages of Blessed Memory were kind-hearted as always and ruled that only a thirteen-year-old should actually receive the death penalty (Sanhedrin 8).
And so that the boy, God forbid, should not forget, we remind him. As it is written, “He shall surely be stoned, or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live” (Exodus 19:13). We remind the boy of his responsibility for sin through a symbolic stoning. But not with stones, God forbid, but rather with a substance that kills many more people each year—sugar!
My sons, who are scrupulous in every last detail of the law, chose from the candy store for their Bar Mitzvahs the hardest candies with the best aerodynamics, the ones that fly fast and straight. And the Indians still think they’re tough!
The shul at my Bar Mitzvah, sadly, did not have the custom of stoning the Bar Mitzvah boy. Don’t worry: I got my opporttunity, as there was an aufruf that same day! A hail of candies descended on my head. But I didn’t lose my senses! Ancient custom holds that American Jewish boys get their first suit, in honor of the Bar Mitzvah. So, I turned my shoulders, hunched over under my jacket, and protected myself from the rain of sugar-stones. Say, if you will, that I am a coward, but don’t say that I lack resourcefulness.
A story: At my second son’s Bar Mitzvah, the women pulled a prank. They shot the gun and performed the stoning early—and thus prevented the men, and especially the energetic youth, from carrying out the full ceremony. Just like in that documentary about Jerusalem during the time of the Second Temple. The women, at a stoning, disguised themselves as men, snuck in, and threw stones with gusto. In the end, it turns out that all the participants were actually women in disguise, because the women loved stoning so much!
A Rite of Passage Like No Other
So what, then, is the pintele Yid—the essential spark of Jewishness?
People have long discussed the secret of our existence, of the eternal survival of the people of Israel, but it’s no secret. Now, you know it too.
It’s hard to be a Jew, but after the Bar Mitzvah, the hard part is easy.
Note: Everything here is true, taken directly from my life. I’d put in some fiction, but reality is better.