At 12, I was a certified black sheep. Between my effeminate antics and my avowed nerdiness, I was desperate for a social miracle. Naturally, I looked to my upcoming bar mitzvah as a life raft: the bridge to fitting in. Around that time, strange things started appearing around my house. One day, a book called Putting God Back on the Guest List materialized on the coffee table. When my family called our first bar mitzvah meeting, it all came together.
“Let’s talk about my theme. I’m thinking theater or traveling,” I said.
“Oh, you’ll have a theme,” my mom said, deadpan. “It’s going to
be JEWISH.”
I panicked. What kind of theme was that?! I tested her boundaries. What about a video montage of my life? Nope. A DJ spinning techno music? The adults won’t like it. How about a separate kids’ party? Not in the budget. Unbelievable! I didn’t even want to go, much less host.
Instead of techno music, the band sang “YMCA” and “Do you love me?” The crowd roared. Meanwhile, I planted a chip on my shoulder and kept it there. For years I even told my parents that my bar mitzvah “kind of sucked.” In hindsight? It wasn’t even true.
Recently, I dusted off the video and watched it. There I was dancing, laughing, and having a ball. I saw things like our centerpieces through new eyes – we’d filled baskets with canned food and donated them to a food bank. How cool was that? If I could redo my bar mitzvah experience, I’d be grateful. I would thank my parents for insisting that the day be about family, tradition, tzedakah, and responsibility. I would tell them how glad I am for their values, and how much I can’t wait to pass them onto my children. I’d know that I actually had a deeply meaningful bar mitzvah – Jewish theme and all.
