I’m almost shocked at how little I remember of my bar mitzvah. I don’t recall my Haftorah reading, what the rabbi said, or what music played at the reception. I learned Hebrew, but I’ve forgotten all of it. Every Hanukkah, I look up the letters on the dreidel.
My bar mitzvah was supposed to be such a momentous occasion, a defining moment, and my passage from childhood to adulthood. It was the day I became a man! Why do I remember so little of it? Probably because I did it for the wrong reasons – the party, the presents, the peer pressure – rather than having any feeling of emerging maturity or any sense of religious devotion. I did it because all Jewish 13-year-old males do it.
It seems laughable that any ritual could make me a “man” at that age when my mother still drove me to school, made my lunch, and even made my bed. (After all, she’s a Jewish mother). Only years later did I gain enough self-confidence to hold my own in a basketball game, to ask a girl on a date, and to speak in front of an audience. And yes, I also gained the confidence to relate to Judaism on my own terms, not my rabbi’s terms. I can now figure out for myself what is important to me about Judaism.
For me, it’s my cultural identity. It’s Jewish food: tsimmes, latkes, and pastrami sandwiches. It’s Henny Youngman, the Marx Brothers, and Woody Allen. It’s my tribe. I can hang on to the culture, the food, the humor, the community, and the history, without necessarily clinging to Israel, Hebrew, prayer, God, and religion.
I can grapple with these questions, and now I understand that Judaism is all about grappling with these questions. Finally, I feel like a man! Isn’t that right, mom?
