Did You Know?
By Rabbi Lief
“Having” or “Becoming?”
How often do we hear that someone is “having” a Bat Mitzvah or “getting Bar Mitzvahed?” While these expressions are common, they are sadly inaccurate. Bar or Bat Mitzvah is a legal category, a title that is earned, not the ceremony itself at which such recognition is made. “Bar” means “son of,” in the construct form, and “Bat” is the corresponding feminine equivalent. “Mitzvah,” while often mistranslated as “good deed,” actually means “commandment.” Those “good deeds” are usually “gimilut chasadim,” “acts of loving kindness,” as discussed in last month’s Did You Know article about our upcoming Chesed Town social action project.
The title, “Son or Daughter of the Commandments” is a bit stilted, however, so we usually retranslate it as “Member of,” as in “Member of [the group that observes] the commandments.” So who is the group that observes the commandments? All of us who practice Judaism, of course. The person who, as a thirteen-year-old adolescent, or later in life as an adult, chooses to become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah does so to demonstrate to the rest of the community that he or she is able to do all the things that the rest of us should be able to do: praying to God, studying Torah, teaching and learning and making our world a better place. Furthermore, the service at which the Bar or Bat Mitzvah makes such a demonstration is, in reality, the starting line of living a Jewish life of personal responsibility, not a finish line of Jewish education. Jewish learning is a lifelong pursuit after all; it’s even a Mitzvah!
Thus, one cannot “have” a “fully participating member of the Jewish community,” one must “become” such a person. Similarly, no one else can make another person a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, you have to choose to become one yourself. I
encourage everyone to join us for worship services on those special occasions in the life of our Temple family when we celebrate as someone becomes a Bar or Bat Mitzvah; all are welcome at every worship service we offer here at the
Temple. Similarly, if you would like to become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah yourself, it is never too late to learn!
