We are now preparing for our third b’nai mitzvah, with one more still a couple of years away.
There are plenty of logistical things that come with that. Invitations. Food. Guests. Clothing. Schedules. All the things that somehow need to come together for one weekend.
But those aren’t really where we start.
For each of our children, we have come back to three things:
Leyn. Limmud. Hesed.
Leyn: reading a piece of Jewish text publicly.
Limmud: learning.
Hesed: contributing through an act of loving kindness.
The framework has stayed the same.
What I’ve learned is that the way each child moves through it shouldn’t.
A Framework Is Just a Guide
I love learning.
I continued with LA Hebrew High School long after regular Hebrew school. I spent a gap year in Israel. I studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where I double majored in Talmud and Midrash. And I kept seeking out opportunities for advanced Jewish learning afterward.
Learning is something I have always wanted to do.
But raising four children has been a very good reminder that the things I love are not necessarily the things they love, and even when we share an interest, we may approach it completely differently.
A framework gives us somewhere to begin. It doesn’t tell us exactly where each child needs to go.
For one child, halacha may be fascinating. Another may connect much more deeply with aggadah, stories and ideas. One may want to read a tremendous amount. Another may be much more interested in sitting with someone and asking questions.
The goal isn’t to create four versions of the same b’nai mitzvah experience.
It’s to give each child enough structure to find something within it that belongs to them.
Child #1: Megillah
Our oldest daughter’s bat mitzvah was during the pandemic.
She studied Mishna Megillah and then moved into the Gemara. Teaching her the Mishna and then the Gemara was special because this was really the first text I learned fully.
For her hesed project, she made mishloah manot for Bikkur Cholim of Greater Washington.
And then she read all 10 chapters of Megillat Esther.
During COVID.
There were plenty of things about that bat mitzvah that weren’t what we originally imagined. But when I think back on it, what I remember most isn’t what we couldn’t do.
I remember what she did. And she was fantastic.
Child #2: Finding a Different Kind of Learning
Our second daughter’s bat mitzvah came toward the tail end of the pandemic and was connected to Sukkot.
She read Kohelet.
We started by learning Mishna Sukkah. But she wasn’t particularly interested in continuing into the Gemara.
So we didn’t.
Instead, she studied Pirkei Avot and then Avot D’Rabbi Natan.
That change was important for me.
The point wasn’t to recreate her sister’s learning program with a different tractate. The point was for her to learn soemthing that would resonate with her. Sukkah wasn’t going to have enough philosophy or aggadah. So I pivoted with her to something that many kids would not study, but something I loved. I also taught bits of Avot D’Rabbi Natan when I was a 7th grade Talmud teacher while I was in grad school. So many fascinating stories.
And that meant paying attention to what kind of learning actually interested her.
Her hesed project was also very much hers.
Her bat mitzvah fell during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. She loves baking and is very good at it, so she made apple butter and pink challot and sold them to raise money for Sharsheret.
I’m not generally drawn to hesed projects that are primarily fundraising or collection drives. I usually want the kids to have some kind of tangible experience of doing something.
But this was different.
The baking itself was tangible. She was using something she was good at, developing a skill and turning it into something she could contribute.
And Sharsheret was personal for our family.
During my cancer treatment, Sharsheret was incredibly helpful in connecting me with other people going through similar experiences. My cancer was HER2-positive and ER/PR-negative, which is less common, and when you’re trying to make decisions about treatment and what comes next, having people who understand the particular questions you’re asking matters.
So her project connected something she loved doing with an organization that had mattered to our family.
That made sense for her.
Child #3: Learning From Everyone
Now we’re preparing for our son’s bar mitzvah.
And once again, the framework looks different.
He’s doing less reading than his sisters did. The learning is what has really captured him.
And his limmud has become something I didn’t anticipate when we first started doing this with our oldest.
He’s learning with lots of different people.
Ari is finishing Daf Yomi in January for his 50th birthday, and he began learning Berakhot with him.
Our son has learned with one of our rabbis. He has learned with close family friends. He has learned with other kids in the community. He has learned with his oldest sister.
He’s working toward completing Seder Moed, but I’m increasingly interested in how he’s learning it.
Jewish learning doesn’t only happen between a child and an assigned teacher.
It can happen with parents and grandparents. Rabbis and teachers. Friends. Teenagers. Other children. People who know a tremendous amount and people who simply have something they are excited to learn together.
There is something beautiful about entering Jewish adulthood having already experienced Torah as something you learn with a community.
His hesed project is taking a similar path.
He decided that he wanted to contribute to ASIRT, and part of what drew him to the organization was the opportunity to connect the project with a beloved teacher.
Our hope is that this becomes something meaningful enough that it doesn’t end when the bar mitzvah does.
And Then There Is the Date
His bar mitzvah weekend also carries a connection that he couldn’t possibly have planned.
It falls on the weekend my father would have turned 85.
My father died 18 years ago.
He never had a bar mitzvah.
The first time he was called to the Torah was at my brother’s bar mitzvah in May 1996, when my father was 54 years old.
Thirty years later, our son will be called to the Torah for the same parsha.
Naso.
It also happens to be the parsha I read at my own bat mitzvah. The one my brother read at his bar mitzvah. And the one I read during the weekend of our aufruf.
Naso is also the longest single parsha in the Torah, because apparently our family doesn’t do anything simply.
There are traditions we intentionally create.
And then there are connections that reveal themselves along the way.
This one feels particularly special.
Four Kids, One Framework, Four Different Experiences
We still have one more bat mitzvah ahead of us in about two and a half years.
I have no idea yet what hers will end up looking like.
And that’s really the point.
I don’t think there is one right way to do any of this.
Even within our own family, I’m not interested in saying, “This worked for Child #1, so this is our system.”
The system isn’t the experience.
The framework gives us somewhere to start.
Leyn. Limmud. Hesed.
What those words mean in practice depends on the child standing in front of us.
Over the next few months, I’m going to share more about how we’re approaching this third b’nai mitzvah, including some of the planning systems I’ve been building, the things we’ve learned from the first two, the things we’re doing differently and probably some things we’ll discover we got completely wrong.
Because after doing this a few times, I have plenty of ideas.
I definitely don’t have all the answers. I am learning from my community, from my friends, and from the people in the active bnai mitzvah facebook groups that share so many great ideas.
