Bar Mitzvah Shuffle

I attended my first ever Bar Mitzvah during the Shabbat service last Saturday. Rather, I stumbled through the unfamiliar customs from the back pew of a very packed synagogue hoping (again) that I didn't stick out too much from the crowd. I'm sure I did, but... whatever. Since I am wearing kippot (head coverings) that Amy has collected from previous B'nai Mitzvah (Thanks, Amy!), I am paranoid that somehow I have managed to put it on my head inside-out, with the gold-lettered announcement of the last Bar Mitzvah exposed for everyone to see (and laugh at). Of course, this is pure ridiculousness. If this had happened, I am sure someone would have brought it to my attention; like when I accidentally miss a hard-to-reach section while I am shaving the back of my head, somebody nice notices and takes pity and ... wait a minute... maybe I should be paranoid after all! :)

Actually, I am reconciled to the fact that I'm going to be stumbling along for awhile as I try to figure out the prayer book (with my rusty... very rusty scholar's Hebrew not lending itself very well to the quick pace of congregational prayers), the order of service, and general synagogue etiquette. A new find at Half Price Books promises to help. I found the copy of To Pray as a Jew: A Guide to the Prayer Book and the Synagogue Service (Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin) quite accidentally (as are most of the better finds I come across). But, I hope to find a lot of valuable information inside. I feel like I might be on track since I found a folded copy of an old Shabbat service sheet (1986) from the same congregation I have been attending tucked between two heavily highlighted pages describing the proper attire expected of prayer service participants. Note to self: no blue jeans on Shabbat.

As a newbie, it's not very easy to decipher the different threads of custom distinctive to each of the main Jewish denominations. How would the expectations of a Conservative Jewish congregant differ from those of an Orthodox or Reform Jew? This has been a nagging question since I started this recent spiritual detour. That's why I was relieved to find the old service sheet in my new book purchase. Even a 25 year old service sheet can't fall too far from the traditions and customs in the prayer book guide that it validates as someone's impromptu bookmark. How embarrassing would it be, after all, for me to invest my energies in learning the etiquette for an Orthodox synagogue service only to show up to a Conservative service in all the wrong gear and making all of the wrong moves? Or, maybe it doesn't work that way at all. Maybe the different threads of Judaism all look too similar to an ignorant gentile to notice the differences. I'm fairly certain that I would be able to notice some superficial differences in detail and form, but certainly most of it would fly well over my head as is the current experience I am having at the Conservative synagogue.

But for all of my confusion, the Bar Mitzvah service was incredibly moving. My only prior experience with this rite-of-passage of young Jewish males and females into the fullness of their heritage in the eyes of their congregations was what I had seen on MTV's My Super Sweet 16. Needless to say, it probably wasn't very reflective of average B'nai Mitzvah celebrations. Or maybe it is. Who am I to say what happens after the official service comes to a close and the family heads off to celebrate? But what I experienced - an adolescent leading the congregation in prayers, participating in the public readings from the Torah, and delivering insights on the week's Torah reading (called a d'var Torah) - really signaled a collective act of the entire community to embrace and a promise to uphold and support this young adult as he continues to grow and play his role in congregational life for the time that he spends as one of its members. It was very obvious that the preparation involved in getting him to this point was a community-wide effort, requiring countless hours and acts on his behalf by the rabbis, his religious educators, his sponsors, and his family. His own effort was equally impressive. I fought to hold back tears as I saw this young guy stand very boldly at the center of the gathering and deliver every prayer, reading, and talk with such confidence and sincerity. How I wish that I had had such an opportunity in my own religious experience.

Children were not often even seen in our church services when I was growing up - let alone given the floor for delivery of the sermon. Of course, we were trotted out as shepherds and wise men for the annual Christmas pageant and joined in for occasional singing at the beginning of a church service, but aside from screeching out the horrible melodies from the hymnal, we could expect a quick-march to the exit or the glare-of-death from our mothers if we uttered even a peep during the rest of the service. More typically, we were excused to "children's church" after the singing - a type of dumbed-down Sunday School where we made macaroni pictures of Noah's ark, played musical chairs to "Jesus Loves the Little Children," and occasionally recited passages from our little green Gideon's New Testaments (from the Gospels, of course - none of that heavy Pauline stuff, thankfully). I can't say that it wasn't somewhat of an effort by the adults to ensure that our souls weren't wasting away while they fed on more meaty substance in the grown-up's church service, but in retrospect I wonder what might have been the impact if we'd been trusted (and expected, even) to engage in thoughtful discourse about biblical topics even at our young ages. It wasn't as though we were total imbeciles. I could quote word-for-word feature-length scripts from the Disney catalog by the age of seven, so why couldn't I be exposed to more than craft time crayola-drawings of Jonah and the fish?

Perhaps I am being too harsh. In my parents' defense, we went quite a bit further at home. As a preacher's kid, I was expected to read through the bible with my family in it's entirety (including all of the 27 books of the New Testament) every year. It wasn't easy and my father's drill-sergeant ways ensured that we paid attention at the breakfast table discussions that followed. In that regard, I am very thankful for the attention to scripture that my parents required of their children. But, this never really was extended to children's educational programming on Sundays. The light-weight gloss-overs of biblical subjects in Sunday School and Children's Church were all-too-often reduced to a babies-milk treatment in the form of puppet shows and sing-alongs. I don't mean to mock. The brave women (men didn't teach the kiddos in my church) who were conned... er, recruited to the task of entertaining... I mean educating us little terrors did their best to mix some biblical training into the mix. But, by the time I reached youth group age (when really substantial bible education began), I don't think that I honestly had any more invested in my spiritual formation than I did Grimm's Fairy Tales, Aesop's Fables, or Captain Kangaroo. That is to say, we hadn't been expected to chew any meat before Junior High School age. Maybe its the same in Jewish education. Again, how would I know? From what I saw at the bar mitzvah last weekend, however, I think it I can assume that religious education for Jewish children is imbued with a seriousness the likes of which I was not exposed to in my own church background.

These days I honestly feel like a little kid again, running between the desks and down the aisles of a college lecture hall. Such is the gap between my level of knowledge and experience and those of the people who have been raised in Judaism tolerating my endless questions. I am trying not to be too hard on myself. I realize that these things take years and years of steadfast learning and that they require a dedication to study and a focus on searching for application to practical living. What is the value of faith, after all, if not to find purpose in the wisdom of scripture and the revelation of God in obedience to the commandments?

I am thankful for this opportunity to once again be a child in this way. I hope to live up to the Bar Mitvah's example that impressed me so last Saturday morning; he was such an inspiration. I pray for strength and wisdom as I climb each rung of the ladder knowing that I will occasionally slip and need to cry out for help. Mostly though, I am glad to know that Truth and wisdom might reveal themselves to me on this journey and that I might take home with me from this experience more than just a stray piece of painted macaroni stuck in my hair from the craft-time project on Daniel in the lion's den that my mom used to hang by magnets on the refrigerator door.