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Revisioning Bar/Bat Mitzvah
as a Spiritual Initiation Research Statement
Increasing rates of teenage
depression and suicide have resulted in a call by therapists, clergy and
educators for greater attention to be focused upon adolescents, often with
an emphasis upon the creation of sanctioned initiation rituals for those
on the threshold of adulthood. Bar/Bat Mitzvah is widely looked to as the
longest-enduring ritual in this category. The exit point from formal
Jewish education for the majority of Jewish youth, the contemporary
Bar/Bat Mitzvah preparation process is increasingly being criticized for
the absence of the very spiritual life skills it has been purported to
convey. This project develops and tests methods and tools for infusing
spirituality into the practices and processes of the B-mitzvah experience. TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Research Bibliography
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During my son's Bar Mitzvah prep year, since his Torah portion was Noah, we took the Universe Explorer cruise up the coast of Alaska. We helicoptered onto glaciers, watched whales, visited tribes. The big AHA moment happened in Victoria, British Columbia at the Natural History Museum. The Western Coastal Nuu-chah-nulth tribes were then keeping (and maybe still do keep) their most sacred artifacts in the museum in temperature controlled rooms. A tribe-member is always present as guard and docent. My son Mark and I walk in and after a bit I feel a tap on the shoulder. "Is that your son?" inquires a person obviously from the tribe, due to his dress. "Yes." (I turn quickly, what mischief could my son be up to in here?) "Are you a Jewish shaman?" Inquires the tribal representative. I pause in responding, then realize he must be asking because of my kippah (ritual scull cap). My son has noticed us and answers: "Mom? Yeah, she is, more or less, we call shamans rabbis in our tradition." He turns to my son and says: "I've heard the puberty rituals of your people are very special. Would you tell me about yours?" My son turns crimson and wisely responds in his newly cracking voice: "Um. Would you tell me about yours first?" Pachi, a middle-aged member of his people begins by saying: “A person's most important possessions in this world are: Your names, your song, your dances and your masks.” “These are how you will be remembered when you are gone, these are how you pass on the wisdom of your life, and this is the most important inheritance a person can leave.” The reverential manner in which Pachi caresses his father's masks is very telling. Lifting the red, green and white raptor head carving atop his own head, he becomes the story of an agile scout, covering miles and miles filled with adventures. Still, his gestures show the mission is very serious because it must result in sighting food for the tribe. The dance is a powerful transmission of the skills of a scout. He stops. Mark is fascinated. He inquires further, using Talmudic method, he notices something curious about the opening statement. "Mr. Pachi, you said dances, masks, names; those are all plural. Why, then, do you say only song and not songs?” Pachi continues: “Mark, let's say you belong to my tribe. The first verse of the song of your own life you must write during the year of age 12. How to do this is an art communicated by a mentor. This mentor will be from a different family than your own. If you are a boy, your first mentor will be a man. He will help you look back on your young life and think about the hard times, special times, joyful and successful times. From this reflection will come the first verse of your song.” He turns the mask in his hand and begins peering out through its eyes at Mark. “You will add a verse at age 20, and 30 and 50, if you live that long, and at your marriage and the birth of your children, sometimes also if you survive a dramatically dangerous thing. You sing your first verse at your puberty feast and wear your first mask and dance your father's dance and then dance the one of your own, which you create. You will become a mentor too, when you are an adult. A mentor helps you find your place in the tribe, to make sense of your life.” Pachi turns to me and explains: "There must be an economy of words to the song, a splendor to it and a combination of personal individuality and yet conformity with the metaphors of tribal tradition. It must reflect an integration of the values of the tribe and self awareness. It is sung softly by your mother should the shaman have to come when you are ill and also it is sung by the tribe at your death . . . at your death your names will all be spoken, and your dances danced with your masks telling the stories of your life.” Then Pachi says to Mark: "And how about your rituals?" Mark looks at me and says, "Well, we get a tutor and they teach us trope. Our own lives don't matter for so much, nor the lives of our parents, at least not in the ritual or Judaism, though my Mom tries hard to change that. Mostly we have to learn a chunk of our tribe's story by heart and sing it at a service. Then we get a big party. We don't do masks, we do tefillin . . . that's another story. And we do dances at the party, though I don't think they have special meanings.” But what, I keep thinking, of Mark’s own song? Shouldn’t I be helping him to lovingly craft such a legacy . . . to know himself in that way? Pachi continues to interpret rabbi as shaman. He asks if I am training my son to follow me. “Has Mark begun to learn how to bridge the power of the ancestors for the tribe?” I am asked. “Does he know the chants? At what age will I teach him how to discern where the power of the tribe's intention is and how to shift it for their own good?” After our trip, I moved to New York City where I became increasingly aware of rising suicide rates as a consequence of being asked by the Jewish Funeral Home Operators’ Association to make myself available to facilitate at “difficult funerals of the unaffiliated.” Moved to study the matter further I was appalled to find that the suicide rate for the 15-24 year old age group in America has tripled over the last 30 years and doubled since 1960. The fifth leading cause of death in that cohort in 1960, today it is the third, behind accidents and homicides.2 The Menninger Foundation reports that in every minute one American teenager attempt suicide and every 90 minutes one succeeds. They declare these findings to be only the “most visible tip of the iceberg” because health statistics on suicide attempts cover only hospitalizations or those who have sought professional help.3 After reading the confidential diaries of four such young Jewish girls who killed themselves, I am becoming aware of just how very much this problem needs to be addressed. I have resolved to take a piece of it on in my own work which will be reflected in this project, that of restoring spirituality to the Bar/Bat Mitzvah process.
1 Quoted in Jeffrey Salkin, Putting God on the Guest List, Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1993, page 122. 2 Quoted in M. Sandra Reeves and Alina Tugend, “Suicide’s Unanswerable Logic”, in Betwixt and Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation, Louise Carus Mahdi, Steven Foster & Meredith Little (Editors), Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 1987, page 47. 3 Ibid., page 90.
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Historical Research and Analysis I. Bar Mitzvah is not a biblical practice. It was introduced during the rabbinic period. Bar Mitzvah is a technical term from the rabbinic period for a Jewish male who has reached the age of thirteen and one day, which was their determination of the attainment of religious and legal maturity. In Numbers 14:29, the Torah places the age of majority at twenty years of age. Post-Biblical Jewish law revised the age of maturity downwards, specifying that at the age of thirteen a Jewish boy is obligated to fulfill all the commandments. Bar Mitzvah seems to be entirely rooted in midrash and aggadah (rabbinic lore).4 The first reference to thirteen as the age of being commanded to do mitzvot is found in Judah ben Tema's statement in the Mishnaic tractate Avot: “they are thirteen [when they are responsible for] mitzvot,” hen shlosh esrey la-mitzvot.5 II. The original blessing for a Bar Mitzvah was that of the parent thanking God for freeing the parent from responsibility for the youth. This was more responsibility for educating the youth in knowledge of Judaism’s spiritual practices and ethical ways of living than it was economic responsibility. Fathers are not seen as responsible for the religious behavior of their sons after age 13. The rabbinic imagination is powerful and has authority to transform the progress of Judaism. Here the rabbis offer a retelling of the youth of Jacob and Esau in from Bereshit Rabbah, the classic fifth century midrash on Genesis and in so doing reveal the traditional blessing for completing one’s B-mitzvah. "And the boys grew." (Genesis 25: 27) Rabbi Pinchas said in Rabbi Levi's name: They were like a myrtle and a wild rosebush growing side by side; when they attained to maturity, one yielded its fragrance and the other its thorns. So for thirteen years both went to school and came home from school. After this age, one went to the house of study and the other to idolatrous shrines. Rabbi Eleazar the son of Rabbi Simeon said: A man is responsible for his son until the age of thirteen [to have him educated in the Torah]; thereafter he must say: 'Blessed is He Who has now freed me from the responsibility for this one'. In his thesis Rabbi Salkin proposes that Bar Mitzvah may be rooted in the fulfillment of statements a father makes in the course of the ritual at his son’s circumcision. The circumcision blessing to which he is referring is: “As this child has been brought into the covenant of Abraham, so, too, will he be brought into the study of Torah, the marriage canopy, and the performance of good deeds.” Bar Mitzvah marks the father’s fulfillment of his obligation to bring his child to study and the blessing of separation of responsibilities is understood in the mishna as related only to that. Indeed in the Gaonic period (eighth century Babylonia), Rabbi Yehudai Gaon stood up in the synagogue and said the blessing about being relieved of responsibility for his son the first time his son read from the Torah.6 An analysis of this section reveals the likelihood that the father is no longer able to exercise control over the son’s religious behaviors at age 13 and was responsible until this age to provide a full formal Jewish education to the youth. Issues of autonomy are very common for b-mitzvah adolescents and this material can be offered as part of B-mitzvah family studies to encourage discussions about autonomy in various spheres of the youth’s life post B-mitzvah. From this data it seems that forming a collection of alternative B-mitzvah blessing formulations might also be a useful part of this project. III. Educators often express the wish to move B-mitzvah later in the teen years in order to have a youth developmentally capable of intellectual and moral development. One would be hard pressed to try to find textual support to change the age of B-mitzvah. Thirteen steadily appears in aggadic literature as an age of religious status change along a variety of parameters: 1. Midrash Pirkei De-Rebbe Eliezer 16. At the age of thirteen Abraham rejected the idols of his father Terach. 2. Talmud Sanhedrin 69b. According to the Talmud, Bezalel fashioned the Tabernacle at the age of thirteen. 3. Talmud, Yoma 85a teaches that a boy who is thirteen years and one day old should begin to fast on Yom Kippur. He could help constitute a minyan (the quorum for communal prayer). 4. Midrash Tanhuma Hanidpas, Bo, para. 14, p. 84. (probably eighth century) records the first known technical use of the term Bar Mitzvah: Can even minors don tefillin? We are taught, "You shall observe” (Exodus 13: 10), i.e. everyone who learns to observe can [learn to] do. This eliminates minors because they are not bound to observe. But, if a minor is Bar Mitzvah [i.e., obliged to observe] and bar deah [i.e., knowledgeable], he is obligated to don tefillin. 5. Bereshit Rabbah 80:10 and Midrash Lekah Tov on Genesis 34: 25 and Midrash Sechel Tov on Genesis 34:25 and Midrash Ha-Gadol on Genesis 34:25 all note that Simeon and Levi, during the sack of Shechem in retaliation for their sister Dinah (Genesis 34) conclude that they were thirteen years old and thus legally culpable for their actions. 6. Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Edut 9:8, states that at the age of thirteen, a youth could serve as a member of a bet din (a Jewish court), and could buy and sell property. The notable exception was that the testimony of a thirteen year old is not considered valid regarding real estate because he is "not knowledgeable about buying and selling". There are limitations to the status of this evolving adult which are transformed at age twenty and in some places fifteen, most notably complete responsibility for one’s deeds7 (Numbers 1:3 and 26:4). Josephus says he was examined by the elders and found “commendable” at the age of fourteen.8 The biblical age for mandatory military service is twenty in these passages. The Jewish mystical text, the Zohar, uses these different age points to signify different stages of spiritual metamorphosis.9 This material yields substantial precedent for why age 13 was maintained by the rabbis and shows that it was not viewed as a full transition to adulthood, that limitations on responsibilities were maintained then, as now. I had originally thought to advocate changing B-mitzvah to age 16 to honor the later development of youth in our times. I do not see that as viable or reasonable after a review of the sources and precedents. 2. The Bat Mitzvah originated in 1814 within Germany’s Reform Judaism as a ritual held between age 16-18 that included an examination of mastery of religious doctrine, and celebration of completion of formal education and was seen as the entry point to adult community. This signaled completion of formal education and entry into adult community for females.10 The Bat Mitzvah as a direct parallel to the Bar Mitzvah was introduced by the unique and decisive action of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan who desired to mark his daughter’s Jewish maturity in a manner parallel to that done for males. His is a classic act of “transgression” in the authentic sense of the term introduced by Bell Hooks. He sought no clearance and simply acted with directness and simplicity. Judith Kaplan Eisenstein’s historic Bat Mitzvah took place on March 18, 1922. Here is a segment of a piece written upon her death. The oldest of the theologian's four daughters, Judith Kaplan Eisenstein was encouraged by her father to question and challenge Orthodox views. "When I was 11, I told my father that I didn't believe in God," she recalled during an interview in 1994. "There was a sense of freedom and freedom to change. There was a constant opening up of possibilities and enrichment" with his view of Judaism, she said. "It made my being Jewish a great joy for me rather than a burden," she said. At the age of 12, and under her father's tutelage, she completed the very first Bat Mitzvah at the newly founded Society for the Advancement of Judaism in Manhattan. Her father had thought of the idea only a day before. That night, she practiced reading the Torah portion with him. "I didn't work on it the way kids work on it now, for a half year with lessons every week," she said in 1922.... "All I did was read it through with him Friday night, and Saturday morning I went into the synagogue and did it," she said.11 I am intrigued to discover no in-depth studies whatsoever on the evolution of the Bat Mitzvah. The actual entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica claims it originated in France, but gives not even one detail or date and never mentions the event above. This major encyclopedia also demeans the ritual in its description, never suggesting that most girls will fulfill the exact same ritual training and performance standards as boys. In orthodox circles Bat Mitzvah with a service and Torah reading is often done only in front of female friends and family members. A frequent variant is that a girl is not allowed to read from the Torah at all and instead a coming of age party is held, where she might be encouraged to give a Torah teaching. To further establish the evolutionary track of the Bat Mitzvah I contacted the Jewish Women’s Studies Project at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, in New York City, Ma’yan: The Center for Jewish Women’s Lives, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Women’s Archive in Boston. No institution has kept intentional records of this process. At the Jewish Women’s Archive, Carla Goldman shared research she did for an article on the subject in the Jewish Women’s Encyclopedia which reports that in 1953 some 35 percent of Reform temples offered Bat Mitzvah as an option, today it is a norm for all girls in such congregations. Goldman found that the Conservative movement’s more traditional outlook also lent itself to appreciation of this opportunity for learning and service attendance. By 1948 some form of Bat Mitzvah ceremony was held in most of these congregations and by the 1960's it was an established norm.12 The Bat Mitzvah created a problem for the denominations. If a girl was called to the Torah once, did that not earn her the right to come up as a witness to Torah at services on a regular basis? This discussion emerged in 1955 before the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards. There was a favorable minority opinion, which by the denomination’s standards opened the way for opened-minded congregations to adopt the practice. By the 1980's women had attained full equality in Conservative congregations. A doctoral dissertation topic surely awaits someone inclined to study this unattended to topic. Studies of denominational and congregational minutes and newsletters would be indicated, as well as oral histories with advisors in Jewish law, educators, rabbis, cantors, congregational past-presidents and ritual chairmen, women and their elderly parents. As part of my own process of understanding this phenomenon, I began to collect oral history vignettes by asking each Jewish woman I met during a one week period whether she’d undertaken to become Bat Mitzvah and if she would share a bit about her process and whether there were any politics involved. Those that follow are a representative sample of these chance encounters selected to reflect a diversity of denominational experiences: Sandra Goldman grew up in Atlanta, GA. She was 13 in 1956, but became “Bat Mitzvah” in 1955, because her congregation did not want anyone to imagine the rights of a Jewish male were being conferred upon her. She was not allowed to read from the Torah, but rather gave a one page Torah talk at Friday night services. For this privilege her parents lobbied for three years prior to the event. Her mother recalls: We began to invite members of the board over for Shabbat dinners. Sandra would sweetly chant the kiddush (blessing for the Sabbath done over a ritual cup of wine) and some would marvel at the novelty of a girl doing so. Others would chide us as being inappropriate, suggest we would give her “notions” and suggest perhaps I’d have a change of life baby boy to fulfill my desires for a Torah scholar in the family. Ultimately, the fact that we were major donors and threatened to withdraw from the building fund campaign was the key factor in securing her “Bat Mitzvah.” There was no major preparation involved. The rabbi insisted that she report on what the sage Rashi said about the portion and deleted Sandra’s personal commentary about the questions the portion raised for her. We tried to compensate by throwing an elegant party, but she was very out of sorts through the whole thing, angry at the rabbi and disappointed.13 (Today Sandra is in the process of returning to Judaism after extensive yoga studies in California and India.)0 Alicia Millman was Bat Mitzvah this year in Queens, NY. Her congregation does not allow women’s voices to be heard during services and a one-way mirror covers the women’s balcony that separates them from men in the synagogue. Her aunt, who is no longer orthodox, went to great lengths to make the following telephone interview with her niece possible:
Lynn Feldheim was not Bat Mitzvah. She tells her story succinctly, her face and pose still showing her anger.
Upon being asked about the possibility of doing Bat Mitzvah as an adult Lynn replied: “I don’t see any reason to contemplate such a thing.” Beth Ornstein was Bat Mitzvah in 2002 in Rochester, NY. She reported her experience with bubbling, joyful enthusiasm. This has been the best year of my life. I really worked hard, and everyone had a great time. My grandmother came from England. She’s 84. I was so happy to see her.”17 Beth showed the researcher a book of pictures and memorabilia she’d created from the event, it was bursting with masks and every note sent back to indicate attendance had a blessing on it. That it seems, was her teacher’s idea. “She taught us to make the return cards a spiritual message to lift each other’s spirits on the path to Bat Mitzvah. That works, you know!” What about the masks?
In conclusion, it is important to note that Orthodox girls still have limited participation in this aspect of Jewish life in most congregations throughout the world; while all other denominations have embraced full equality for women in this aspect of Judaism. A fitting end to this section is indeed what Beth called the “Esther” song, “She Said "No"!” by Margot Stein, Rayzel Raphael, Bayla Ruchama, Juliet Spitzer. 4 Bar Mitzvah entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica CD Rom, 1996. 5 Mishnah, Avot 5:24 6 Orchot Chayyim 58 on Yehudai Gaon. 7 Salkin, Dissertation, 8. 8 Salkin, Dissertation, citing Abraham Wasserstein, ed. Flavius Josephus: Selections from His Works, NY, Viking Press, 1974, p. 31. 9 Zohar, vol 2, p. 101a. 10 Stein, Regina, Dissertation, “The Boundaries of Gender: The Role of Gender Issues in Forming American Jewish Denominational Identity,” 1913-1963, page 89. 11 Debra Nussbaum Cohen, Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, “First Bat Mitzvah, Judith Kaplan Eisenstein Dies at 86, February 23, 1996. 12 12 Paula E. Hyman, “Bat Mitzvah” in Jewish Women in America, Paula E. Hyman & Deborah Dash Moore (Eds), Great Britain, Routledge, 1997.
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Interview by Rabbi Goldie
Milgram with Sandra Goldman, October 10, 2002, New York City. |
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Summary of Biblical Research and Analysis I. Rites of passage in the Torah require the involvement of significant others and/or symbolic mentors. To validate this claim I conducted a number of key word searches in the Torah in order to reveal as many rites of passage as possible for a close reading and analysis. A. In the first initiation ritual, Genesis 3, the snake might be said to appear on the scene as God’s representative spiritual mentor. This episode is brilliantly depicted by Bill Cosby with great humor on one of his tapes as a cosmic parenting scheme on the part of God to help creation emerge from its edenic womb time. The act of taking on something that you have introjected from a parent figure as forbidden forever, then going through your death layer to shed the skin of excess respect for authority and contribute to the unfolding of society by experimentally reconfiguring a norm, is a fundamental component of maturity. The role of a mentor includes being a goad to such maturation and is often a wily aunt or uncle, a wise neighbor or teacher who specifically is not the very parental figure that must be overcome. The Talmud also reflects this very sensibility in a classic tale that ends with God saying proudly “My children have defeated me. My children have defeated me."19 The B-mitzvah ritual has long held out the assumption of adult religious privilege as the rationale for itself. Cultivating what it means to engage in Abraham’s adult right of hutzpah klapei shamaya, “religious audacity,” as in his capacity to argue with God, is an important opportunity to focus upon during this process. We are building the Jewish future and this cannot be a total quality initiative without permission for experimentation via radical actions to advance this religious civilization. B. The rainbow covenant leading into Genesis 8:21 informs the B-mitzvah process which is itself a covenanting on the threshold of maturity. These verses make us aware of God’s time of aloneness and reflection after angrily flooding almost all the life out of creation. This is where the word hamas first appears. God saw hamas, “annihilative violence” occurring everywhere and is drawn into the fray, taking on the self-declared role of mashkhit, slaughterer. The subsequent rainbow covenant shows a maturing God getting over a youthful innocence and excess pride in the quality of creation. Sobered by recognition that the destructive capabilities of God are also present as design flaws within humans, God resolves, [albeit unsuccessfully] never to manifest in such a toxic way again. The wake up call for this resolution is Noah’s first burnt offering, a smoke signal calling God back into relationship. This is where the stretching necessary for maturity most often occurs, in relationship. The rainbow covenant reminds us of the importance of symbolic elements for initiation rituals and gives us an example of an adult initiation of a magnitude fitting for what we call God. This story also offers an excellent opportunity to emphasize Judaism’s understanding of the inherent fallibility of God and so to encourage youth to see themselves as constituent elements of God’s research and development team for the improvement of the Executive project we call creation. The seeding by a mentor of such a perspective can yield our youth an inspiring inner-wellspring for life-long meaning. C. Circumcision accompanied by receiving your sacred name, as in Genesis 17 is the biblical motif for active covenanting into a conscious relationship with God. In this case Avram and Sara, receive the addition of a letter from the tetragrammaton to their own names, becoming Avraham and Sarah. Getting or giving a name is one of the earliest verbal manifestations of relationship in a life. In modernity, the conferring of a Hebrew name is part of the process of covenanting a newborn, done at circumcision for a boy and at a Torah service for a girl. With rising rates of intermarriage, substantial non-affiliation with synagogues and concomitant secularization, a significant percentage of Jewish children do not receive a Hebrew name as infants. The need for a sacred name will next come up upon starting religious school, when seeking preparation for B-mitzvah, or for some as belatedly as the time of marriage. Among those who do have a sacred name, few have explored its spiritual connotations. Learning more about the history and meaning of one’s sacred name, adding a second one, changing one found to be undesirable or taking one for the first time can be profound and memorable points of spiritual growth for a youth or adult. Methods for doing so through a spiritual lens may be a useful component of this project. Another pertinent naming example is the time of wrestling with the angel which leads to Jacob being known as Israel. Israel, in Hebrew is yis-rah-el, “God wrestler.” Here we have a name change associated with another physical symbol that signifies his ability to wrestle in the Place of Emptiness. Jacob wins approval for this wrestling in the receiving of a God name, along with an alternative physical symbol, a torn tendon and attendant limp. B-mitzvah training could afford the opportunity to help a youth prepare for periods of existential emptiness, to see as honorable periods of major wrestling, and then to consider its impact when naming themselves, or perhaps the site where the wrestling took place, or the event itself. To name something can be a powerful spiritual practice, then when you go over or by that same speed bump on the path of life, you know where you are. B-mitzvah has not traditionally involved any physical action upon the body, perhaps because the body is offering its own radical physical transformations through the onset of puberty. [Since women bleed monthly and bear children, this seems to have satisfied the need for a physical reminder to live in holiness for the female gender.] Circumcision eight days after birth is the primary enduring symbol of male participation in the covenant; stepping up to the Torah at B-mitzvah then asserts his readiness to do so. Understanding of the spiritual value of the rite of circumcision could be undertaken during the B-mitzvah process when awareness of genitalia is an emerging subject on a youth’s agenda. This rite seems to relate to God’s ongoing quest to inscribe holiness into the embodied behavior of men and through the drawing of a bit of blood to hope to inspire them not to use their male power to draw blood in anger. The management of anger and subvention of the impulse to dominance through violence is a major learning process on the path to maturity, requiring mentoring at repeated intervals. B-mitzvah is a good age at which to make this process explicit. Technically the father is supposed to perform the ritual of circumcision himself, to feel and learn to control the power of his hand with a knife taken to a child. These days the mohel, a professional who does the ritual virtually painlessly in matter of seconds with the use of a topical anesthetic, serves as the parent surrogate. Whether parent or mentor, these themes merit inclusion in the project. It is increasingly common for boys to arrive at B-mitzvah with the need for circumcision, which is a serious surgical procedure by this age. The same reasons as for a drop in the incidence of Hebrew naming apply, coupled with the decision of health insurance companies to drop payment for circumcision as a health measure preventive against infection and cancer of the penis, given the low incidence of these problems in sanitation sensitive North America. The matter of circumcisions needing to be done at the time of B-mitzvah preparation may have reached a sufficient proportion to merit the inclusion of relevant spiritual resources on the topic of circumcision within this project. D. The binding of Isaac recalls the need to address the changing relationship of parent and child as adolescence arrives. It is important to note that a much later text, the Koran, includes the same tradition, only there it is Ishmael who is taken up the mountain by his father. This tradition supports a less common reading of this text, that it represents a normal practice for initiating of the freedom of a son reaching adulthood through the ritual enactment of a pseudo-sacrifice. I would also add the possibility that this moment might harken back to the original knife of the son’s circumcision and the father’s power to give a child life or take it, and the need to control that impulse so that a son can grow up and find his own way. During my time as an inner city social worker I once saw a father throw his adolescent son to the ground, stand over him and declare: “Listen, I gave you life and I can damn well take it away if you don’t behave.” B-mitzvah offers the opportunity to foster mentoring over dominance in the parenting relationship. E. The element of parental choice in a person’s destiny appears in Exodus 4. Here Tzipporah, Moses’ Midianite wife, circumcises their son Gershom while on the run. This decisive moment for her, deciding whether to raise her child as a Midianite or an Israelite, mirrors the motif of modernity, that everyone is a Jew by choice, barring the genealogical perspective of a Hitlerian regime. This is a crucial time for a child to hear “because I love you, I have raised you in this people’s holy covenant with God. I pray it will be a source of great sustenance for you on the journey of your life.” This depth of feeling is rarely made explicit during the B-mitzvah process and its inclusion is an important project consideration. II. Tactile elements and hands-on actions are basic to biblical initiation rituals that confer a change in status and entitlements. In addition to circumcision in this category we have: A. Establishing monarchy as depicted in Psalm 89:20 and numerous other texts requires the application of oil as part of the rite of transition from being any person to the chosen leader. B. Vestments to be worn at initiation and then as robes of priestly service are depicted in Exodus Chapters 28- 29. Among the many weighty components, significant for our purposes are the jeweled breast plate, robes sewn with pomegranate embroidery and really gold bells along the hem. Priestly initiation rituals include being washed, dressed, the offering of a sacrifice, various anointings and a time of vision quest. The latter involve going into the Holy of Holies where the propensity to connect profoundly to God was so present in that process that a person might die, leading to the practice of sewing bells onto the hem of the priests’ robe. If the bells stop ringing, the priest must be retrieved lest their souls cleave to the Source and they die. Also noteworthy is the crest that was worn on the forehead of the priest. Engraved upon it was the phrase kodesh l’Adonai, “Holy to God.” A strand of sunset-time sky blue yarn was threaded at the corners to hold the head piece in place. The Hebrew term for this particular blue, techeylet, is also the blue that was required to appear in the fringes to be worn on all four cornered garments. At a B-mitzvah it has become traditional for a child to also receive a prayer shawl, called a tallit or tallis, the vestment signifying attainment of adult Jewish office. This has recently begun to be presented in a pre-ritual ceremony, and is often laid across the initiates’ shoulders by one or both parents. The shawl echoes some of the priestly garment elements, bearing a collar emblematic of the original crest of gold and fringes which included teheylet blue until the recipe was lost in exile. The bells which appeared on the high priest’s robe are now found on the Torah’s metallic crown, which, when the youth lifts the Torah will indeed tinkle as a reminder of the closeness of the soul to God at such an initiatory moment. The bells now appear on the decorative crowns that are placed on the Torah when it is carried during Sabbath services. And a silver breast plate now hangs on the Torah. The embroidered pomegranates, reminders of the folk belief of pomegranates having 613 seeds, which equal the 613 commandments in the Torah, now are symbolized by the appearance of a plaque of the Ten Commandments over the ark, which itself symbolizes the Holy of Holies. Placing an inherited, or specially selected or commissioned tallit onto the B-mitzvah initiate has become a major and moving opening ceremony. Few know the biblical antecedents of these matters and this affords spiritual mentoring opportunities regarding garments and meaning and d’vekut, how to attain a state of cleaving to God. Many youth suffer the absence of a sense of holiness in their lives. The B-mitzvah preparation process could include study of what it means to be “holy to God” and even a piece of jewelry bearing this phrase might be created as part of the resources of this project. This could be conferred by parents telling their child how part of being holy to God is the feeling they have of how “you are precious to me.” The parents are to be encouraged to elaborate positively upon what they see in their child. C. Marriage is another hands-on life-cycle ritual which is a pretty sparsely developed part of the Torah that seems to involve bringing a woman to your tent (today signified by the huppah, wedding canopy) and yadah, “knowing” her, which is generally interpreted as sex. D. Immersion in water as a rebirthing ritual in Judaism is a part of the preparation for marriage, integral to conversion rituals, part of one’s cycle of spiritual preparation for love-making and reproduction, and part of the preparation before entering the Temple, particularly on pilgrimage holidays. [One can see excavations of ritual Baths for this purpose just in front of the temple walls in Jerusalem.] A key word search on water in the Torah and Talmud reveals its diverse ritual applications. The conspicuous absence of the ritual use of water in the B-mitzvah process is interesting and raises the question of whether reasons for this are documented somewhere and whether introducing a water-related B-mitzvah ritual might be a project consideration. Examples in the Jewish sacred texts of the use of water in ritual include: Beit HaShoevah, drawing out, Talmud Sukkot 53a. Nesekh, pouring, for example, Numbers 24:7. Rahatz, washing, for example, Numbers 8:7 Hessed, serving, for example Genesis 24:14. Sotah, drinking, for example Numbers 5:24. Z’reekah, sprinkling, for example Numbers 8:7. Mikveh, immersing, such as Leviticus 11:36. Water in Judaism symbolizes rebirth into a new status. The Jewish mystics see God’s attribute of hessed, “overflowing loving kindness” present in any scene that includes water or discussion of it, as well as the potential of its polarity, excess and overreaction, as in the flood. This quality is one of seven depicted in Kabbalah as a model for how humans are in the image of God. One thought might be for B-mitzvah spiritual mentoring to include practices that cultivate the Kabbalist’s model of seven sephirot, seven spiritual aspects of a developed human. In Leviticus 11:36 the expression mikveh mayim is found. Here a gathering of living waters is shown as capable of use to purify utensils. This is the classic phrase on which the Talmud draws for developing immersion in living waters to assist a soul’s move into a new status. Immersion applies at conversion, weddings, preparation for conception, and at death. When a person immerses in the mikvah, a pool, lake, river or ocean of fresh water, s/he takes on the state of the world yet unborn and in the womb, subjecting him/herself totally to God's creative power. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan puts it this way: Were [a person] to remain submerged for more than a few moments, s/he would die from lack of air. [One] is thus literally placing [one]self in a state of non-existence and non-life. Breath is the very essence of life, and, according to the Torah, a person who stops breathing is no longer considered among the living. Thus, when a person submerges himself in a mikveh, s/he momentarily enters the realm of the nonliving, so that when s/he emerges, s/he is like one reborn....the representation of the mikveh as both womb and grave is not a contradiction. Both are places of non-breathing, and are end points of the cycle of life. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the Hebrew word kever, which usually means “a grave” is occasionally used for the womb. Both are nodes in the cycle of birth and death and when a person comes through one, attains a totally new status.20 The letter mem which begins and ends the Hebrew word for water, mayim, is closed in its form at the end of a word- - that signifies pregnancy/womb and open at the beginning - - signifying birth in Jewish mystical tradition. The letter mem has the numerical equivalent of 40, which is the Hebrew number for transformation - the Talmud says an embryo takes 40 days to form, there are 40 nights and days of the flood, 40 years the Israelites spend in the wilderness, and 40 units of water are required for a mikveh, the term for a ritual bath facility. Attention to metaphors of transformation using the number 40 and the letter mem’s biblical significance can be added to the mentoring process. Youth rarely understand that growing pains lead to knowing gains. Advance awareness of this can save lives. Consciousness of stages of transformation can help turn interminably painful processes into a lifelong interest in spiritual journeying. Newer rituals might be adapted for the inclusion of water in B-mitzvah. One could add the feminist tradition of Miriam’s cup, a beautiful goblet designed to honor the biblical prophetess that is filled with spring water and blessed as a ritual alongside the blessing over the wine. This is already being done at Passover seders. Mentors might begin to help students to take notice of shefa, the “Divine overflow,” meaning to learn the ability to detect abundance in creation. This can be achieved through study of relevant texts accompanied by meditation upon water as a metaphor as well as upon actual waterfalls and rivers. Why actual immersion has not been utilized bears further research, maybe it has been considered and found inappropriate for the context or failed with this age group. Or it could simply be that B-mitzvah does not qualify as a change of status on the level of birth, death, conversion and marriage. If so, immersion may best be reserved for those more liminal times. B-mitzvah does contain fear, most often derived from performance anxiety before the ritual. This anxiety is sometimes severe enough to keep some individuals from starting or completing the process. E. The sacrificial fire, present in Ashkenazi tradition over the ark in the form of an eternal light, resonates in Jewish mystical tradition as the five levels of the soul. Discernment of one’s soul is a great gift which has been little attended to with our youth. The preparation of materials for such a teaching is sorely needed. F. Finally, as Moses did, so will every B-mitzvah, interpret and add to the meaning of Torah as a leader of the Jewish people. As s/he ascends the bimah (platform in a synagogue) and opens the scroll, s/he will not only chant the words of God, s/he will also give an address, a dvar Torah, explicating and adding what s/he sees of contemporary value when using his/her soul as a prism for the text. This experience is eloquently described in the title of the first volume of Jewish feminist theology as Standing Again at Sinai.21 This moment of leadership is the culminating moment of the B-mitzvah process. Too often what happens at a B-mitzvah is not the empowered vision in the paragraph above. Instead, the child studies what past generations have learned from the text and primarily regurgitate it with the child youth then adding but a line or two of their own ideas. Mentoring methods need to be explicated to help our youth tap into their own neviut, “prophetic voice.” One of Judaism’s great advances over the religions in the region of its birth is the ability to have both linear and cyclic understandings of time. To the rhythms of nature, Judaism added awareness of the linear dimension of time. Linear time allows for vision and planning, necessary elements of positive civilizational change. III. Feasting is an expected B-mitzvah event. Traditional sources derive this from the weaning party given in Genesis 21:8 thrown by Abraham to celebrate Isaac’s weaning. The text says that Sarah asks Abraham to put Hagar and child out of the camp when she sees Hagar m’tzaheyk, which is often translated as “mocking,” yet is rooted in the term tzahak, laughter. Today a bit of a humorous roasting is often part of Jewish life cycle rituals and this passage can inform the need for healthy humor in the face of family dynamics during such times of personal stress. Section Summary The Torah, Talmud and later sacred texts have proven to be a great source for understanding the contemporary B-mitzvah ritual and restoring meaning and spirituality to it. There is no formal priesthood in Judaism today. The tradition now asks every Jew to step up to the plate of sacred service, investing each of us in the ritual and ethical responsibilities of Jewish adulthood at the time of B-mitzvah. Biblical research has revealed the essential elements of initiation ritual: Relational mentoring, vestments and sacred objects, tactile elements and actions rich in visceral impact. Ideas that come out of this research that may prove pertinent to the final project include: 1. Training spiritual mentors 2. Teach human partnership with God. 3. Emphasis on taking and relating to one’s sacred name. 4. Expanding understanding of circumcision. 5. Parental role in affirming the youth’s connection to the covenant. 6. Teaching the symbolic elements of the move from the Temple system to the temple/synagogue. 7. Emphasis on tallit as a sacred garb connected to this ritual. 8. Considerations for expansion of sacred garb for this occasion. 9. Teaching that help a youth sense his/her inherent holiness. 10. Potential of adding a ritual which uses water to enhance the power of the transition. 11. Teachings on basic metaphors for soul level transformations within Judaism. 12. Encouraging youth to see themselves as authentic spiritual leaders to find their own prophetic voice. 13. Incorporation of humor amidst the celebration and feasting. |
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Theological Research and Analysis I. Methods can be introduced to help B-mitzvah students become better prepared to stand-again at Sinai, to function for the first time as m’kubalim, transducers of the sacred for the community and recipients of the gift of awareness that s/he can co-evolve and thrive within the Greater Consciousness. A. My teacher Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi teaches a four worlds model for leading services based upon the Kabbalists’ four components of mystical experience. Assiyah - Doing. Yetzirah - Feeling. Beriyah - Thinking. Atzilut - Being/Unio Mystica This model has proven applicable to the creation of meaningful ritual and text interpretation. The model facilitates a multidimensional consciousness that allows for growth, depth and increasing awareness of God experience. This project will shape this model for use in the B-mitzvah process. B. Hitbodedut, as previously mentioned, is a Hassidic practice derived from Moses’ time on the mountain with God and the high priest’s isolation in the Holy of Holies. Based on the root badad, to be “alone or secluded,” it is a reflexive term, meaning making yourself secluded. This is essentially the Jewish version of the vision quest, except that its goal is more focused, in that it is entering into a “conversation with the One you belong to,” as Reb Nachman of Breslov taught it some two hundred years ago. He placed this practice above all else for his disciples, a daily lone conversation with God. Dr. Arthur Green describes how Reb Nachman conceived of this: The hassid was to set aside a certain period of time each day preferably out of doors, if possible and always alone, when he was to pour out before God his most intimate longings, needs, desires and frustrations. Nachman emphasized the need to do all this aloud to bring those usually unspoken inner drives to the point of verbalization. He also insisted that one do so in one's native language.22 Hitbodedut is a personal practice of mine and one I teach on retreats. I am now holding mentoring dialogues with those who participated in those retreats, in part to assess the age-appropriateness of this practice and whether it will need modification. I am also in contact with a formal organization which teaches safe methods for vision questing, Vision.org. Documenting and teaching age-appropriate methods for hitbodedut likely will become part of the final project. II. It is important to find ways of shaping the B-mitzvah process to help a young person cultivate an intrinsic sense of holiness. An expression for spiritual leadership in Judaism is that those who offer this must become Klei kodesh, sacred vessels. The Lurianic Kabbalists teach a creation model which involves the breaking of the original vessel of creation because the intensity of Divine light given was too great for the vessel to bear. The human task becomes to search for these scattered bits of light and to uncover the shells of radical din, “chaos and injustice” which cover them. Every individual is depicted as containing such a holy spark, the soul, from birth. This spark radiates an intrinsic holiness within a person that allows them to be attracted to lost sparks in the world; to desire to redeem them through living a mitzvah-centered state of consciousness.23 A role for spiritual mentoring comes in here, the creation of opportunities for our youth to dance, paint, write and speak about where their intrinsic holiness feels covered by radical din and to be assisted in releasing that ritually, perhaps through teshuvah, person-to-person forgiveness practice and mikveh, a purification process. The capacity to sense a redeemable spark calling to them in the midst of what appears to be radical din is also a matter for such mentoring. A tragedy of public and parochial education is the almost total emphasis upon knowledge over discernment, action and healing. III. Jewish theology once saw God as primarily King, commander-in-chief of creation. Outside of orthodoxy God is usually taught as either Process or Predicate. There may be value in putting the tzav, “command” back into B-mitzvah. The founder of the denomination in which I was ordained, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, rejected the very idea of mitzvah and deleted it from his vocabulary except for the practice of Bar Mitzvah. He preferred the term “folkways” to refer to the evolving norms of the Jewish people, including ethical acts.24 Mitzvah means commandment, obligation. How does one help the heart of an adolescent to feel m’tzuveh, obligated in relationship to G-d, while at the same time supporting that youth to remain in a critical dialogue with tradition/G-d, wary of the agenda of those who and that/which control(s) the systems/cosmos? Feeling m’tzuveh, “commanded,” in a spiritual sense, appears to be a developmental process. Moral maturity is an incremental process with many attainable levels for those with the requisite support, intelligence and inclination. In “Moral Development and Tikkun Olam,” Sid Schwarz and Michael Shepard invoke Kohlberg’s stages of moral development to help educators understand how to work with diverse youth. He expands Kolberg’s categories and grounds them in Jewish values as follows: Ohnesh: Fear of Punishment. Sakhar: Self-interest. Midot Tovot: Self-image. Hityahvoot: Duty Tovat ha Klal: Social Contract Tzedek v’khessed: Absolute values. Kiddush Hashem: Sanctification of God’s name. The team that developed this model emphasized one point consistently: What is critical from an educational perspective is that children need to evolve through each stage consecutively, and they will do so at their particular pace. When trying to motivate moral behavior, a child who is functioning at the level of self-interest, for example, will not be able to respond to a parent or a teacher who appeals to their sense of duty.25 Rabbi David Wolfe-Blank, may his memory be a blessing, died very young and quite recently. He found a helpful language and model for this moral development within the methods of spiritual guidance taught by rebbes from the Chabad Lubavitch sect. Like the Kabbalists, they see the original light of creation stepped down to be all of creation, including your soul spark. If the light of your soul is well-contained and well-directed by the keli, “vessel,” meaning the kind of person you are, a condition of stability known as hityashvut, “settledness,” occurs. This capacity to enjoy life within a settled state is one of the intermittently attainable goals of spiritual practice and may be a value to consciously cultivate in our youth. Reb David provides similes that unfurl the awesome accomplishments behind this construction of reality: Somehow a strand (ray? holographic snippet? vibration?) of the Infinite Light becomes a finite “vessel” containing, again, the Infinite Light. Examples of this type of split: a part of the embryo becomes the eggshell; a part of the molten lava flow becomes a hard outer shell for the lava, a part of the caterpillar becomes the cocoon which protects the butterfly-to-be.26 When your vessel becomes too strong, you have created a kelipah, described by Reb David as “a shell which hides rather than a protective skin to enable.” Then even the greatest light is only an exterior illumination which will wash over the person instead of entering to strengthen their inner light. In this model those whose vessel is translucent will be able to warm and expand the process of this “enlightenment” through prayer. In hityashvut practice you become able to cease holding tightly to neurotic patterns, addictions, and false defenses. This category of practice helps you to “combust, unite, conflagrate and passionately transmute, resulting in your mind emptying and becoming consciously experientially ONE with that which you are already, mysteriously united.”27 The focus of most B-mitzvah mentoring is twofold, the completion of ritual skill training - the ability to lead services and read from the Torah and Haftorah and the completion of a mitzvah project yielding a major and focused good deed in the world. Development of the vessel of self of the youth for unio-mystica is not deeply addressed and one would be hard pressed to find many B-mitzvah students recalling a state of spiritual epiphany during their year of training. Section Summary The theological emphasis in this section was upon those practices which might influence a youth’s ability to feel connected to God. Several practices were proposed for incorporation into the final project: 1. The four worlds model for religious experience: effective logistics, emotional satisfaction, intellectual expansion and spiritual growth. 2. Hitbodedut: A Jewish form of vision quest by being alone with God in nature during a free-form session of prayer from the heart. 3. Purification process including mikveh and forgiveness practice, teshuvah. 4. Cultivating the capacity of feeling m’tzuveh, guided by God toward ethical life through the mitzvot. 5. Teaching parents about the levels of moral development with an understanding of a goal of raising a person capable of hityashvut, equanimity within a condition of stability. 22 Arthur Green, Tormented Master, Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 1992, page 145. 23 Rabbi David Wolfe-Blank, The Meta-Siddur, Self-published, 1999. 24 Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, New York: Reconstructionist Press, 1975, page 197. 2 2Sid Schwartz and Michael Shepard, “Moral Development and Tikkun Olam,” Jewish Education News, Spring 1999, Page 22. 26 Wolfe-Blank, his pages are not numbered. 27 Ibid. |
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Economic Research and Analysis I. The largest sum that a parent will expend for their son or daughter is likely to be for the expensive B-mitzvah feasts and festivities after the ritual. These often seem out of proportion to the sacred nature of the occasion and one reason is the support for this practice to be found in the Talmud and later compendia of Jewish law. Based upon Nehemiah 8:10: for the joy of the Lord is your strength,” Reb Nachman of Breslov taught: mitzvah gedolah liheeyote b’simcha tamid, "it is a great mitzvah to always be at a simcha." Simcha can be translated as a state of happiness or a happy occasion. The sages offer examples of how to serve God with a simcha, and a common one is by holding parties for life cycle events. Genesis 21:8 says Abraham threw a feast to celebrate Isaac’s weaning, and there is a midrash, Bereshit Rabbah 53:10. which says this was when Isaac was thirteen years of age. The first mention of the Bar Mitzvah party is in the Shulchan Aruch (the classic sixteenth century code of Jewish law) where Rabbi Solomon Luria works with a report from the Talmud concerning the obligation to hold a party for a simcha: R. Joseph said: Originally, I thought, that if anyone would tell me that the halachah agrees with R. Judah, that a blind person is exempt from the precepts, I would make a banquet for the Rabbis, seeing that I am not obliged, yet fulfil them. Now, however, that I have heard R. Hanina's dictum that he who is commanded and fulfils [the command] is greater than he who fulfils it though not commanded; on the contrary, if anyone should tell me that the halachah does not agree with R. Judah, I would make a banquet for the Rabbis.
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