Rites (and wrongs) of Jewish passage - small electrical appliances

I was afraid of my mitzvah 21 years ago.
I'm not worried about messing up my debut on bimah, where I'll sing part of the Bible ---
I have been preparing for almost a year in our synagogue's Conto and five years of Hebrew school.
But as an 8 th grade student who has just turned 13 years old, I am the youngest of my classmates to become a mitzvah, and I know that I have to make it acceptable to my friends ---
Jews and Gentiles-
It was a long and arduous religious ceremony.
I pray that my parents will let me reward everyone's patience with one footass party.
Most of my peers have DJs in their B 'nai (
"B 'nai" means plural form)
Mitzvah reception--
A girl even has a band. -
This makes those standard gefilte fish and pasta salad buffet lunches an exciting school dance while adults
Ups poured himself a sweet and disgusting Manischewitz wine.
But I'm not one of the lucky ones.
Instead, my mother hired an Israeli folk singer to entertain a handful of friends from my middle school and Hebrew school, as well as our family, as well as colleagues from my pediatrician's grandfather and friends from the golf club, he is paying for the bill.
For two hours, we didn't even have a few rounds of "Hava najira.
"No, it's just a lonely lady playing her acoustic guitar, like Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (
Jerusalem of Gold)
And the national anthem of Israel, hattikawa.
"In other words, my Mitzvah party was terrible.
There's nothing worse than Mark Oppenheimer's mitzvah crash in Scottsdale, New York. Y.
Tampa, Florida.
Because he has carried out impeccable research on the cultural history of the Jewish Mitzvah, if often rashly described, it is "Thirteen and one day: bars and Mitzvah across the United States ".
"The former New Yorker staff, the current editor of The New Haven Advocate, attended the ceremony and reception for the reform of the United States, conservative and Orthodox Jews across the country are looking for why so many of us "bother to keep this part of faith ".
Oppenheimer, who holds a doctorate in religious history from Yale University and cheers from secular Jews ---
His Jewish mother was raised by an atheist communist.
His father was an impious German. American Jews --
There has never been a mitzvah.
"In his family, it is important that the left, not the Torah or Zionism, grow up in the Catholic town of Springfield at Mass.
But when he met more Jews at Yale, he first met the rituals of the Jews, such as the Sabbath dinner and the Horn of the sheep (the shofar)
Oppenheimer experienced a cultural awakening.
"I think I saw other Jews for the first time. . .
Jews who have been to Israel, Jews who can read Hebrew, Jews who plan to become rabbis, Jews with irony, still wearing T-
Shirt received as gift for mitzvah party.
Years later, when Oppenheimer served as a religious writer in The Hartford court, he absorbed more knowledge about Judaism from rabbis and Jewish scholars, further arousing him as a "journalist" Jewish historian
"Just then, he decided to" investigate the wild and growing popularity of the B 'nai Mitzvah.
"As he carefully pointed out, this is not to say that he wants to learn to be a mitzvah.
When Oppenheimer's journey began in New York, why did he sneak into the swank scastdale synagogue and the luxury reception at the Manhattan hotel ---
The fancy, excessive glasses thrown out by parents seem more inclined to impress friends and colleagues than to celebrate the adult ceremony of their Jewish children as adults.
Not exactly religious inspiration.
Oppenheimer has little control over his grief. -
Sometimes, awesome antipathy-
Activities like this
While this may seem predictable, what really infuriates him is that he is experiencing the B 'nai mitzvah ritual of hijacking the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbos)
Morning service.
The rabbis often shorten the usual ceremony at the expense of people who often gather to accommodate honorable guests.
Oppenheimer wrote: "The days of reading by depriving it of its central purpose, public prayer, and public Torah," "in the Jewish community, the high importance of the B 'nai Mitzvah actually seems to have weakened the religious potential of the ceremony. . .
The first Torah service attended by a young man or woman was not a real Torah service at all, but a reasonable fax. . .
For the audience of invited friends and relatives, the child is a guarantee of success.
"It particularly infuriated Oppenheimer, as so many of these families joined the synagogue in a short period of time
The term, the basis of opportunistic, becomes a member in the child's bar or a year or two before the mitzvah, and has no interest in spiritual or communicating with the congregation.
In fact, most of them will not renew their membership once their children have completed their passing ceremony.
After the ceremony, Oppenheimer followed the guests to visitthe-
Top B 'nai mitzvah party with dj, tarot reader, bartender, cartoonist.
Some receptions have "party motives "---
People are hired to "chat with guests at cocktail parties and often make boys flirt with girls ---
But not too frivolous. -
Dialogue, then dance and dance when the music starts to play.
"He even attended several bars and mitzvah parties at N. Teaneck. J.
Greenwich, Kang en.
Focus on the latest cultural trends in photography, entertainment and catering.
He wrote: "The saddest thing about party culture is not luxury, but it affects itself.
Eternal sense of ubiquity and helplessness.
A family is still free to make their own decor, build the pinata, cook food and play the cd in stereo. . .
But in places where spending contests are as intense as an arms race, more and more professional and sophisticated party arrangements have the potential to make homemade celebrations look old and childish.
"Oppenheimer finally left the more disgusting B 'nai mitzvah ---
In any case, we read a lot of such reports in magazines. -
To uncover the family of great significance in this ceremony.
With this change, his attitude has changed, from disagreeing to surprise to varying degrees, and his pretentious expression has also been adjusted from complete disgust to mild irony.
Approaching religious beliefs, spirituality and any trace of sentimentality seems to be threatening Oppenheimer;
He's like a smart guy.
The running reviews for Alecky teens are more fun than the excitement around them. He did warn us;
Oppenheimer explained earlier that his secular parents made him cynical about organized religion.
Then, I think, he is affectionate and brave to pursue his thirst for knowledge with such vitality and wisdom.
If he doesn't feel the need to keep a distance from snark like he did when describing the scrub --
Torah's mentor, along with the Jewish revival ceremony in Alabama.
He was even a little self-righteous when he went to Beth El. Keser Israel (BEKI)
The Synagogue of Conn New Haven.
It has an absolutely equal, conservative Jewish congregation whose atmosphere is a mix of "Shetland --
Wool intellectuals and the rearsixties hippie.
"Anne Bass, BEKI's mitzvah girl, chose to obey all religious restrictions. (
As Oppenheimer pointed out, the mitzvah was a relatively new creation, invented in 1922 by Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the Freedom reconstruction movement.
Conservatives did not become popular until 1950. )
Anne's observant family raised her and asked her to keep "Shabbos "---
Refuse to write or work, operate an appliance or change money on Friday night and Saturday until sunset ---
But she decided to pray every day.
"It's beautiful and meaningful.
"I don't know what that means, but it makes sense," Anne explained to Oppenheimer . ".
She is also dressed in small black boxes containing fragments of the Hebrew Bible known as tefillin, traditionally worn only by men.
"With this religious belief, she has no choice but to accept something," Oppenheimer wrote . " She used her as a role model for Jewish health and mitzvah and was the antidote to Scarsdale
"Oppenheimer knows that Anne is not the same as anyone he has ever met.
She came from a counter.
She designed her own mitzvah.
Choose not to knock-down, drag-
At the outside party, she prefers a small party for a buffet lunch at the synagogue after the morning service.
The author is keenly aware that Anne is special, "for she is respected for being the kind of young Jewish rabbi, teacher, and parent who wishes for the kind of determined, spiritual genius.
"I was a little ashamed of Annie not knowing the burden I put on her," he wrote . ".
In fact, only the Lubavitcher mitzvah boy he met in Alaska was as loyal as Anne. -
These two studies are very obvious. -
But that's not to say that they are the only dedicated, serious Jewish soul he meets on the Crosscountry trip.
Lubavitcher Mendy Greenberg, who lives in Anchorage, Alaska, is not the kind of 13-year-
But you meet every day.
He longed for his Mitzvah so that he could be honored to continue the missionary work of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994.
For him, manhood is like "the beginning of his responsibility to save the souls of the Jews of the world.
"Part of this includes taking on Schneerson's obligations" the Tefillin movement ", a mission to get as many Jews as possible to wear tefillin ---
Oppenheimer, who doesn't know how to place tefillin, provides himself as a student.
In Tampa, Oppenheimer made contact with Judy Gannon, the mentor of the professor "trop"-or chanting --of the Torah.
Reading the Torah is one of the most difficult tasks, as the whole Torah is written in consonant letters, with no vowel marks and barely visible --read.
One of Oppenheimer's most strange mistakes came here, and he gave an disturbing example of trop's complexity: he likened it to Hitler's favorite composer singing a piece.
Is he crazy, naive, or is this really the only example he can imagine, as he wrote, "chanting the whole Torah". . .
Similar to singing all parts of Wagner's Ring cycle from text that has neither vowel nor any note.
"In the same sentence that saw the Torah and Wagner, few Jews would feel fear.
After making fun of Judy's frosted hair, she couldn't breathe (
He quoted her in the paragraph and described the way she told the story of life, "like she was the host of the variety show, introducing her behavior one by one ")
Her house was packed with B 'nai mitzvah tchochkes and he finally gave her the respect she deserves.
Judy is completely loyal to her students and synagogue and boasts her great knowledge of the Torah-
In a small town in such a Jewish community, she is essential.
Indeed, Oppenheimer found that one of the reasons for the experience of mitzvah and mitzvah in American culture, especially in the main non-Mitzvah
The Jewish area is an open statement.
"It's a natural opportunity for Jews to declare their presence and to present their presence in a way that neighbors can see," Jacob Newman said in Fayetteville, Alabama. On his hippie.
Jewish revival ceremony.
"At the Temple of Shalom, the occasional mitzvah, perhaps once a year, is a gathering of Jews and Jews --ish --
Fellow Travelers, bystanders, bookmakers and literati, liberals and hippies, somehow different ---
There is also a large group of compassionate but more ignorant gentiles, classmates and colleagues.
Nice to see what these Jewish things are about workers.
"At the unified world Socialist Association, Jacob's mitzvah allows the assembled to pick instruments from the bag before serving ---
Mexican, wooden eggs, tambourine, Mexican-
Accompany a guitarist who sings and plays services in Hebrew and English, which is no different from the 1970 guitar Mass.
But Oppenheimer said it was not as boring as all this, saying that he was "accidentally moved by the bitterness of gratitude that convinced me to calm down for the time being, swing in time before the guitar.
"If we can get to know this mitzvah boy as intimately as koookiness at his ceremony, let alone the local color.
In fact, with the exception of rare cases like Mendy and Annie, we have little feeling for the children of the B 'nai Mitzvah, who appear at the juggling sites in the "Thirteen Days.
We don't know much about how most of these boys and girls feel about preparing for the big day, how the ceremony resonates with them, and how their Jewish identity fits into their respective communities.
After all, they are VIPs, even if they are just one day.
But it's just a nitpick from unexpected situations ---
Is and enjoy the-
Reward for Oppenheimer's hard work: by investigating the history of this Jewish arrivalof-
As he grows older, he knows this better than the mitzvah boy.
As Oppenheimer explains the nuances of trop, or describes a young boy who can't restrain, he wraps tefillin's belt around the front arm, the author's cynicism made him lose his naked enthusiasm for the beauty of these ceremonies.
I am a secular Jew who is skeptical about organized religion-
I hate Hebrew school. -
But when I first went to the west wall, I was really frustrated, and I always felt humble when I heard the long hair.
One of the things I admire most about Judaism is that it refuses to believe blindly.
Jewish ideas, by definition, lead to cynicism. -
Questioning reiterated faith, some denominations are open to adapting to the new era.
So, even if his writing characters sometimes get a little harsh, there's no better guide than the sarcastic intellectuals like Oppenheimer, he opens his heart, let yourself know what he has missed over the years (
See if he really missed it. .
And, unlike the children of most men and women who are prepared to be commandments, he may keep this information for a longer time.
Although he insisted during the "Thirteen Days" that he did not want to be a mitzvahe bar-too bad.
His pursuit of investigation turned him into an honor, if not, the mitzvah boy ---
Any rabbi or Jewish parent would be proud of it.