When my father turned 13, he celebrated his Bar-Mitzvah. It was just days after the assassination of President Kennedy. He begged his parents to serve a dinner of prime rib at the following reception. I don't even like prime rib. When I was 13 years old, I, too, celebrated my Bat-Mitzvah with my family and friends. I was lucky to share the special weekend with my younger (by four days) cousin Nancy. That was nine years ago, almost 10. My great-grandfather was alive then.
When my brother was 13, he celebrated his Bar-Mitzvah. By then I had my learner's permit and we were living in a different county of New Jersey. And my father was no longer eating prime rib. On April 18, my mother will be the next member of my family to celebrate this rite of passage in Judaism. Her coming-of-age ceremony will be the most special of them all.
When my mother was a young girl in the 1960s, she did not have the opportunity to become a Bat-Mitzvah. Her Temple did not encourage women to study Torah. Thus the ceremony that marks the passage from childhood into adulthood in Judaism was never an option for her. I wonder what my life would have been like if I too had been born in 1950. Two years ago, my mother decided that she would join the adult Bat-Mitzvah class at our Temple. I thought she was nuts.
How was she ever going to learn the Hebrew required to chant from the Torah? My father, brother and I had all studied at our former Temple, where from the very first days of Hebrew school you were literally drilled in Hebrew so that during the year in which you prepared for the Bat-Mitzvah ceremony, you were well endowed with a foundation in the Hebrew language.
I wondered how my mother would learn so much so quickly. I wondered if she could. But she did, beautifully and gracefully, just like everything else she does. I will never be as graceful as my mother. I will never be as purely feminine as her. It happened like this: one day my mother decided to study Torah with a class of older women.
Ultimately, she committed herself. No bragging, no fancy tutors, no special notebooks for her class notes, no excuses. Quietly my mother made up her mind to do something that she felt was important in her life. She has done this successfully. My mother has blessed me with her determination, her courage and her spirit. She has blessed me with her presence.
In some ways I am often reminded of what my own Hebrew tutor once said to me during my lessons. He told me that I should chant very slowly so that my family could listen to and appreciate every sound flowing from my mouth. "Every word," he said, "has a value." That is how I feel about my mother's service. I want to remember each and every word of hers so that I can forever relive that day in my mind. I want to be able to close my eyes in 10 years and hear her chant these prayers. And I want to close my eyes and be with her in a life time that is infinite. In a selfish way I am pleased that my mother was not permitted to study for her Bat-mitzvah as a young girl. I will be able to share the day with her because she missed out on this opportunity as a child.
Her Bat-Mitzvah is like an answer to my own wishes. I have always wanted to time-travel. What would it have been like to have known my mother and father at ages five, at 10, at 15 and 21? How interesting it would be to see what they were like, what habits they had, how they behaved, how they smiled -- even just to have spent an hour watching them be.
As children we know our parents watch us. They laugh with us, they teach us and sometimes they make us cry. They photograph our smiles, and they talk about us as if they think we cannot hear them. Children will listen. And we have very good ears. I think of all of my school plays and chorale concerts and camp visiting days, my awards ceremonies and teacher conferences, my dance recitals and softball games, all of which my mother dutifully attended, always in a pleasant disposition, even when I was at times an animal of a child. She was there. Always.
How lucky am I that for once, during my own lifetime, I will be able to sit back and switch roles with her. Although I will always be a daughter to my mother, I will at that moment in Temple, look at her and wonder. I will wonder about my own rite of passage. Who is this woman that chants Hebrew prayer? And who is the other woman, almost, listening to her mother, in awe at the surreality of life? Is this why my parents had children?
I wonder what kind of mother I'll be. Will my children cherish me the way that I cherish my own mother? Someday I will draw a picture of my mother at her Bat-mitzvah, and she will look like an angel of love.
